Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange with a daily trading volume often exceeding $1 billion, is launching Giwa, its own Layer 1 blockchain, signaling a strategic shift to compete with global leaders like Ethereum and Solana, which handle thousands of transactions per second.
The move follows South Korea’s 2021 crypto regulations requiring exchanges to comply with strict AML/CTF standards, a context that may push Upbit to innovate domestically with Giwa, potentially leveraging its 2023-reported 10 million users for a robust ecosystem.
No peer-reviewed studies exist on Giwa’s tech yet, but the trend of L1 blockchains like Circle’s Arc (2023) prioritizing stablecoin efficiency suggests Giwa might target enterprise-grade use cases, challenging the oversaturated blockchain market’s narrative of endless new chains.
