South Korea will soon have its own NEAR Regional Hub  dedicated to Web3  innovation, business development, education, and talent throughout the country. The hub will be led by entrepreneurs Scott Lee and Ben Kang – both influential figures within South Korea’s growing blockchain community. Details of the plan include tapping into the country’s active gaming community, bringing more amazing projects and creators to the NEAR ecosystem. 

NEAR has entered the game

This exciting development will bring all things NEAR to South Korea’s vibrant Web2 and Web3 scene. Most notably, game developers building on NEAR will be exposed to the country’s massive gaming markets, ranked fourth in the world, and earn commissions on the NEAR-based dapps they build. 

South Korea’s gaming industry leaders feature WEMADE’s P2E project, WEMIX, NetMarble’s MarbleX, and KakaoGames’ METABORA. With gaming and crypto’s popularity in South Korea, the new hub will be integral in helping lay the foundation for Web3 gaming’s future; both locally within the country, and beyond. 

Local leadership for local communities

Together, Scott Lee and Ben Kang bring an impressive depth of knowledge and experience to the NEAR ecosystem, as well as a vast network of industry leaders from the broader Web3 space.

When Lee wasn’t busy founding a Web3 startup or advising on multiple Korean-based projects, he was the Director of Business Development of Legendaries, a subsidiary of KAKAO Entertainment. Before joining KAKAO Entertainment, he led an accelerating division and growth team from SparkLabs and FuturePlay.

Kang began his career in financial services and worked in high profile roles at Merrill Lynch and the Korea Stock Exchange. After co-founding Klaytn, Korea’s leading Layer 1, he leveraged his expertise to advise on the company’s tokenomics and corporate investments.  

The power duo hopes to attract the best quality projects and the hottest developers in South Korea to build on NEAR while helping companies transition from Web2 into Web3, particularly those within the gaming industry.

New places, new talent, new projects

To seize this opportunity to heighten awareness for NEAR in South Korea, the hub will also play a proactive role in community building through meetups, hackathons, and university relations, attracting high quality projects and growing NEAR’s presence in the region.

“NEAR has gained wide support among the exciting Web3 community for its ease of use and impressive user interface, which has helped to democratize access to building and bring a mix of exciting talent to the protocol. Moreover, there is a significant number of JavaScript developers in Korea, and they can now easily build on NEAR,” said Scott Lee. “We want to use the hub to leverage that momentum and to attract an even bigger audience of builders by giving them the funding and the tools to create an inclusive and sustainable Web3 future for Korea.”

“We will focus on enhancing the overall NEAR ecosystem and attracting Web3 projects to onboard – and  also value campus blockchain communities, which will be the fundamentals of the NEAR Protocol.” said Ben Kang. “In order to do this we will work closely with the community to raise the profile of the NEAR and to shine a spotlight on the high level of scalability and useability that the protocol can offer creators.”

South Korea has one of the most established Web3 ecosystems in Asia and one of the most active cryptocurrency economies in the world. This, along with a combination of highly creative local talent and a growing desire for developers to build sustainably and without limits, makes this country an ideal addition to the NEAR Regional Hubs initiative. 

“We are thrilled to be growing the blockchain dev community in Korea as the talent there is world class and they have the potential to create some fantastic Web3 projects on NEAR,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation. “With a stellar leadership team at the helm of this exciting and inclusive hub, we are confident that we can deliver the necessary tools and opportunities to attract more of the best and brightest stars from the local community. Together we can give them the training and freedom to build sustainable and exciting Web3 applications without limits.”

Building a world without limits

Internationally, the excitement continues to build around the #NEARisNOW movement,  and the potential NEAR has as the de facto blockchain of Web3.  With its ecosystem-first approach, incredible community, and innovative tech, there is no better on ramp to the future of the web. Unlike other chains, NEAR gives software developers easy access to create without limits.  

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