By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 24th, 2024
KakaoTalk wants to leverage blockchain-based crypto transactions providing instant and low-cost payments facility to its 44 million users.
Over the last few weeks, global tech conglomerates are seen warming up to the crypto sector. In the latest development, South Korean tech giant Kakao is planning for a crypto wallet integration on its most popular messaging platform KakaoTalk.
On Monday, March 18, local news publication fnnews reported that KakaoTalk plans to bring crypto wallet services to its 44 million users. Thus, it will allow users to send instant peer-to-peer transactions through Kakao’s crypto-powered wallet.
Smart Move from Kakao
According to the report, KakaoTalk will likely integrate crypto wallet just during the launch of its Klaytn blockchain platform. The report notes that the commercial launch of Klaytn will happen in June 2019. The move from Kakao comes soon after another Korean tech giant Samsung announced crypto wallet integration to its Galaxy S10 smartphones. The news publication notes:
“Following the integration of Blockchain Keystore on Samsung, the integration of a crypto wallet by Kakao, which is used by the majority of messaging app users in the nation, is expected to expand blockchain services and usage.”
Also, KakaoTalk will provide its users the cryptocurrency and blockchain services through an opt-in method. This will allow the users to use the crypto wallet across a number of blockchain applications on Klaytn network. Thus, users can send, receive, and store digital currencies in a seamless manner. Last week, Kakao raised another $90 million to fund the development of Klaytn public blockchain platform. One of the crypto industry experts said:
“Kakao needs a cryptocurrency wallet for users of Klaytn and the best way to roll out the service is to integrate a crypto wallet into KakaoTalk, which over 80 percent of the population of South Korea use to communicate”.
Push for Cryptocurrency Mass Adoption
Big organizations from South Korea’s burgeoning tech industry are working towards embracing the blockchain and FinTech revolution. Kakao has a huge dominance in the Korean tech market with multiple services like KakaoStory, KakaoTaxi, KakaoStock, KakaoPay, and others.
KakaoTalk alone dominates over 90% of South Korea’s messaging industry. Thus getting crypto payments and transactions to this platform is a huge step towards mass adoption of digital assets. Note that Kakao has yet to officially confirm the integration of crypto wallet to its platform.
Also, the participation of giants like Samsung bolsters the strength of Korea’s blockchain industry. Besides the crypto wallet integration, Samsung also plans to bring crypto payments option to its mobile payment platform Samsung Pay.
Tech giants across the globe are slowly getting tuned to the crypto market and the utility of blockchain-based crypto tokens for instant and low-cost cross border payments. Recently, Facebook announced that it’s planning to bring its native Facebook Coin to WhatsApp. If successful, Facebook plans to integrate it with other messaging apps like Messenger and Instagram.