[Interview_Blockchain Today Editorial Team]
Medium Inc., a prominent player in the blockchain market in recent years, has recently started to expand its business area through the acquisition of KOK PLAY, a digital content service platform from Medium Ltd. HK. Medium is a specialized company that develops blockchain technology and products, researches blockchain core technology and provides ultra-high-speed blockchain solutions applicable to all business environments around the world. KOKplay means the beginning of knowledge and opportunities, meaning that it is a platform where the best content providers in each area are gathered. KOK tokens can be used not only to enjoy digital contents, but also to various fields such as shopping, cultural content investment, copyright acquisition, and advertising.
With this acquisition of Medium Foundation, Medium expands the application range of Medium’s high-performance blockchain core technology, which exceeds 15,000 TPS (Transaction Per Second), from global enterprises to personal services. In an interview with Blockchain Today on April 16, Kim Pan-jong, CEO of Medium, emphasized the need to firmly undertake’basic construction’ for the business management philosophy. CEO Kim said, “Building a platform is like building a building. You can’t fix it later,” he said. “When the service provision of the platform and the participation of users are combined, the platform will eventually grow. Only then will it be impossible to strengthen the blockchain core.” “To go to global business, you need to build a solid system from the start.”
According to CEO Kim, Medium is not a method of investing to secure various contents like other media businesses, but supports a space where various customers, such as webtoon artist, filmmaker, and producer, can freely upload their own contents. Medium supports all fields such as video streaming, SNS, and shopping malls, but it did not pursue a business direction that encompasses the whole without distinction. Regarding this, CEO Kim said, “The most focus is on the game field. We are going to achieve token economy by utilizing the blockchain core for a metaverse-related game that other platforms do not have.” Rather, we will acquire new users while understanding and satisfying the deficiencies of existing customers.”
<Interview full text>
◇ From the free distribution of the solution to the acquisition of KOK PLAY, the core of today’s interview, the progress is amazing. First of all, for those who may not know the medium, please briefly introduce the medium.
Good morning. This is Panjong Kim, the representative of Medium. We, Medium, are a technology-oriented blockchain solution provider with a solution MDL of 15000TPS, the world’s highest performance, based on blockchain core technology.
Until now, we have been proving our technology through collaborations and references with global companies such as Samsung SDS and PeerSafe, as well as domestic and overseas government offices such as Road Transportation Corporation, Mint Corporation, and Chinese Academy of Sciences. Starting this year, we are expanding our business in a variety of ways based on these technologies and references.
◇You said you are in the process of expanding various businesses. What kind of business are you doing?
First of all, in the B2B field, there were two business models: the existing blockchain solution provision and the collaboration model from business planning to profit sharing. We released a free distribution version of the solution MDL. In addition, we are working on a platform business to expand from the existing B2B market to the B2C market.
What stands out above all is that a technology-oriented B2B company has expanded its scope to a platform business, a B2C business. Is Medium’s business direction changing?
Our medium’s business direction and vision are always the same before, now and after. According to our slogan, it is to make the possibility of blockchain a reality. To that end, we developed a solution with the highest performance in the world, and even distributed it for free. This platform business is also part of the same. To this end, we are running a consortium platform with various partner companies.
◇You said it was a consortium platform. What kind of platform is it?
Recently, various attempts have been made to create new values and services by putting various values and technologies in the blockchain such as NFT, STO, and metaverse. Most of these are issued based on Ethereum, but users cannot be free of cost and performance issues. Due to the low performance of only tens of TPS, users have to pay high fees for each issuance and transaction of digital assets.
On the other hand, our platform is based on HLF (Hyperledger Fabric), and is a platform using MDL that has a high performance of 15000 TPS, and can stably provide various services with high compatibility and low fees according to performance. Based on this, we are building a platform with specialized companies in various fields. Ultimately, the platform we are building is a blockchain-based platform that can permeate the lifestyle of the public such as NFT, Defi, SNS, entertainment, medical care, and distribution. This acquisition of KOK PLAY will be the first signal for this.
◇ Then, what kind of platform is KOK PLAY that will be the first signal?
KOK PLAY is simply a combination of a blockchain and a platform. It was born to create a fairer digital media market by solving the problems of existing platforms such as copyright and fairness through blockchain in the rapidly growing size and vision of the media market. In recent years, it is attracting the attention of global users as a comprehensive digital content platform of all genres that provides a variety of TV contents such as home training and live music, video contents such as movies, popular global webtoons leading K-contents, and various games.
◇ What are the synergies and advantages that will arise from the meeting of the two companies?
As mentioned earlier, the platform we will build is a blockchain-based platform that can permeate the lifestyle of the public. We see two essential elements for that, one of which is to contain a service that can be used by the public, and the other is to provide stable performance to accommodate the public.
In this sense, the meeting of KOK PLAY, a digital content platform, and Medium, a high-speed blockchain technology company, can satisfy both and will create short-term/long-term synergy. As a short-term synergy, the digital content platform meets the blockchain, and through the transparency of copyrights of various digital contents, you can enjoy various contents on one platform that have not been enjoyed due to global copyright issues. You will be able to easily sell globally and receive payments for copyrights transparently and conveniently. In the long term, by introducing KOK PLAY, which currently has hundreds of thousands of global users, to the blockchain platform, it is expected that when various services are introduced in the future, it will be possible to establish a stable market in the early stages.
◇ After listening to the word, I look forward to the future progress between the two companies. Can we hear the roadmap of both companies in the future?
Medium will continue to solidify the four projects mentioned above. Based on the continuous performance improvement of the blockchain core technology that implements the world’s fastest speed, we are concentrating our capabilities on expanding the global business of MDL Solutions, the foundation of blockchain business. Among them, we are working on the China Korea Trade Finance transaction platform (CKFT), a Korea-China trade finance platform with PeerSafe, a leading blockchain company in China. As a technology partner in Korea, Medium provides blockchain core technology for trade finance platforms covering Korea-China, and furthermore, the ASEAN region. In addition, through the distribution of the free version of MDL (Medium’s ultra-high-speed blockchain solution), 5,000 companies around the world will experience MDL, and we plan to induce various companies to the medium service platform in the form of a consortium.
The first development schedule of the blockchain service platform mentioned above is scheduled for around May-June this year, so it is expected that the beta service will be released in the second half of this year. In addition, among the KOSDAQ listed companies, a service is being implemented in which a virtual asset business model is grafted on the basis of a service platform with healthcare, bio, and payment providers. Before long, blockchain service players in various fields, such as content, media, art, finance, real estate, etc., will open a’new edition’ in which digital assets of individuals and companies are freely exchanged without worrying about performance and fees.
Ultimately, we will step through the roadmap for blockchain commercialization one by one.
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