[인터뷰] Li-Financial, Polkadot is’Ethereum Embrace’ rather than’Overthrow Ethereum’

[블록미디어 강주현 기자] “Polkadot stands for Interchain (a blockchain that connects different chains). Ethereum is just one parachain (from Polkadot standpoint). That’s why Polkadot also embraces Ethereum.”

Lee Kwon-ho, CEO of Li Finance, said about Polkadot. On the 17th, I met Lee at O2 Tower in Yeouido. On the 5th, he founded the’Korea Polkadot Alliance’ in partnership with Kobak and STP Alliance.

Polkadot recently ranked fourth in the total market cap of cryptocurrencies, beating Ripple and Cardano. The fact that world-class investment banks Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and UBS have purchased Polkadot ETP (listed indices) for their customers has been known to attract a lot of attention from institutional investors.

◆ Why Polka Dot?

Regarding the reason for choosing Polkadot, Lee said, “The Ethereum network has too high fees and scalability, so transaction processing is difficult.” Ethereum is becoming the base network for many projects, including DeFi, but his view is that the number of projects is not all of the blockchain.

CEO Lee said that Polkadot prioritizes connectivity with other chains and can handle Ethereum smart contracts with ease. He stressed that the interconnectivity of Polkadot is important. He said it would be easier to trade with other chains on Polkadot.

◆ Polkadot vs. Cardano vs. Ethereum

Polkadot is compared to Ethereum and Cardano. In a recent interview, the founder of Cardano Charles Hoskinson said, “Ethereum has only enjoyed the preemptive effect of being a leader, and is like a 96-year-old karate player in a wheelchair.” I disregarded that I didn’t even care about polka dots.

When asked to compare Polkadot and Cardano, CEO Lee said, “There have been many smart contract platforms since the launch of Ethereum in 2014, and in terms of concept, there are many better latecomers than Ethereum.” Network, DApp, etc. are more important.” “No matter how innovative Cardano is, if you ask him how many developers and holders it has, there is room for a reverse attack,” he added.

CEO Lee said, “I think the most important growth point of blockchain is mutual openness and community, but Polkadot differs from other blockchain projects in this respect.”

If so, is Polkadot a’Ethereum opponent’ like Cardano or EOS? CEO Lee said, “The difference is that other coins are’Override Ethereum’, whereas Polkadot is’Ethereum’.” In 2017, when the cryptocurrency market was booming, EOS has a lot in common with Polkadot in that it emerged as a counterhorse for Ethereum and was loved by Chinese investors. Some even refer to the polka dot as the’second EOS’.

CEO Lee said, “In the Polkadot community, there are many projects that integrate code bases such as Ethereum and Cardano. Individual investors want to discover something second instead of Ethereum. As an investment asset, Polkadot can be viewed as the second EOS.” Polkadot and EOS are similar in that investors see it as an alternative to Ethereum, but other than that. “It is difficult to develop a product,” he said.

◆ The plan of’Korea Polkadot Alliance’

He announced that he plans to actively utilize the Polka Dot network through the’Korea Polka Dot Alliance’. Polkadot has characteristics such as para-chain (parallel block chain), relay chain (chain that connects the components of the Polkadot network), and bridge chain (para-chain that can communicate with an independent blockchain such as Bitcoin). .

In order to conduct an efficient blockchain application business in Polkadot, you need to participate in Parachain auctions using Polkadot Token (DOT). Polkadot has to go through fierce competition from the block creation process and adopts proof-of-stake, so the more Polkadot tokens you have, the more likely you are to voice your voice in network decisions.

From the perspective of starting a business for the first time, it is difficult to hold a lot of Polkadot tokens, which inevitably creates a burden. Since there is no polka dot community in Korea, it is not possible to receive a polka dot token. Representative Lee also suffered at first because the information related to polka dots was fragmented and the method to develop was too vague. There are only 100 domestic Polkadot developers.

CEO Lee is planning to introduce Polkadot technology strategies to Korea through the’Korea Polkadot Alliance’, and to recruit offline events, hackathons, and developer manpower. We plan to revitalize the community in Korea by entrusting and using tokens to Korean Polkadot holders, and giving rewards to places that contributed to the development of the ecosystem. He said, “I would like to share my experiences in the Polkadot ecosystem with projects that are interested in Polkadot.”

◆ Li-Financial, exchange service in preparation

Representative Lee worked for 7 years in an education startup. When I learned about Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2014, I started investing in cryptocurrency. Seeing the potential of the virtual asset market, he moved to the blockchain industry in 2017 and began consulting. He was in charge of consulting for 30 blockchain projects such as Hedera Hashgraph and Algorand. He joined Li Finance in September last year.

Li Finance is a Polkadot-based cross-chain asset protocol. It is a kind of DeFi application. It is about to launch an official platform based on Polkadot. Like Swap and Uniswap, it plans to provide an exchange service that combines the advantages of an AMM (automatic market making) decentralized exchange and a centralized exchange that provides order book-type transactions. It aims to provide social trading functions this year.