Busan is moving beyond its status as a blockchain "pilot city" into a full-scale commercialization and global expansion phase. Building on the technology verification results accumulated through its regulatory free zone, the city is pursuing an "industry ecosystem expansion" that integrates blockchain into key regional industries such as port logistics, smart cities and carbon finance, while simultaneously targeting overseas investment markets.
The Busan Metropolitan Government held a kickoff briefing for the "2026 Blockchain Specialized Cluster Development Project" at the Busan International Finance Center (BIFC) on Wednesday, unveiling the direction of this year's project. The project involves 19 companies and institutions, including firms carrying out joint projects, investment institutions, accelerators (AC) and venture capital firms (VC).
The project is an initiative in which the city and the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) are investing a total of 20 billion won — 10 billion won each in state and city funds — over three years starting in 2024 to foster the regional blockchain industry. Recognized for its investment attraction and job creation results over the past two years, the city secured the full amount of state funding for this year as originally planned, and intends to expand the scale of corporate support on that basis.
This year in particular, the focus has shifted from simple technology development toward commercialization and market diffusion. Following its designation as a blockchain regulatory free zone in 2019, the city carried out demonstrations and safety verifications of six regulatory exemption projects, leading to improvements in related laws and institutions. It is now considered to have entered the stage of applying these to actual industrial sites.
The flagship project is "Port-i," which the Busan Port Authority is pursuing as a designated task for the third consecutive year. The project integrates logistics information that had been separately managed by shipping companies, transport firms and terminal operators into a single digital platform. Having completed development and demonstration over the past two years, it will enter full-scale commercialization across the Port of Busan this year. The city expects this to improve port operation efficiency, reduce logistics costs and expand cargo volume.
Competition in the joint project public call was also fierce. The call held in March attracted more than five times the planned number of companies, and three tasks involving a final five companies were selected. These include a port logistics information-sharing platform advancement project involving Smart M2M and Portnex, the construction of a Busan-style smart city life platform by Aikuka, and a carbon reduction security token offering (STO) platform development project by Marinachain and DB Securities.
Support for local companies is also expanding. A total of 40 companies applied in the commercialization support category, with 14 selected. The city plans to provide these companies with commercialization funds and customized consulting, building a virtuous cycle that leads to revenue growth and new job creation.
The city presented "global scale-up" as another pillar of this year's project. Rather than remaining in the domestic market, the strategy is to actively support local companies' overseas expansion into blockchain-friendly countries such as Singapore, Europe and Vietnam by providing investment relations events (IR), business consultations and overseas stay expenses.
The industry views Busan as the only city in Korea that simultaneously holds a blockchain regulatory free zone, a digital asset exchange and financial hub infrastructure, and believes the results of this project could connect with national-level digital asset industry policy going forward. Analysts say that if the city succeeds in building an ecosystem linking technology demonstration to commercialization, investment and global market entry, Busan could establish itself as a key hub of Korea's blockchain industry.
"Based on the results accumulated over the past two years, this year we plan to concentrate our capabilities on commercialization and market diffusion beyond technology demonstration," said Lee Jin-soo, director of financial and startup policy at the city. "As this is the final year of the three-year project, we will provide support so that the results can continue into follow-up projects and private investment."
