Solana Commits $100 Million to Cryptocurrency Projects in South Korea

The fund, established by Solana Ventures and the Solana Foundation, will invest in NFT and DeFi initiatives and focus on virtual gaming.

Solana aims to infiltrate a developer industry still grieving from last month's Terra ecosystem collapse by injecting up to $100 million into South Korean crypto businesses.

Solana Ventures and the Solana Foundation, two significant actors in the ecosystem of the swift network, will seed investments and grants "across all web 3 sectors," according to a news statement. However, they would prioritise wooing the crypto game development industry in South Korea.

The ongoing fundraising campaign puts Solana in direct competition with Polygon, Avalanche, and other smart contract platforms for Korea's unemployed crypto engineers. It is unknown how many Terra developers will return to the ecosystem after its implosion in May wiped away billions of dollars.

“It's not only due to the drastic crash” in twin tokens TerraUSD and LUNA that developers are balking at Terra 2.0, said Jaemin Park, a growth manager at DeSpread, “but also people's perception that the chain has 'key person' risk, as well as doubts that if their dapps would have any meaningful user base since the fundamental community has almost evaporated.”

According to Austin Federa, head of communications for the Solana Foundation, while Solana money will be distributed across Web 3 projects, a particular emphasis will be placed on assisting blockchain game creators in Korea. In 2021, the gaming industry in South Korea was valued at over $15 billion. The intention is to utilise at least a portion of that capability for crypto gaming.

"They know how to construct things there. Big lovely games. A former Solana Labs employee stated, "It's definitely something to behold."

Solana also intends to interact with the development community in Korea via a hacker house scheduled for early August.

By fLEXI tEAM