South Korea, a powerhouse of blockchain innovation, is making another step forward in the crypto space by partnering with the University of Sydney’s Computer Science Department.
Fantom, a South Korean-based smart contracts platform trying to solve scalability problems currently faced by public distributed ledgers, is funding a program to make smart contracts safer.
The project will be led by Bernard Scholtz, an associate professor of Computer Sciences, and Michael Kong, Fantom’s Chief Innovation Officer. / who is an ex-student of professor Scholtz during Michael’s time at the University of Sydney.
The Fantom employee was taught by Scholtz at the University of Sydney, and the two have recently co-authored an academic paper.
Under the project, the Australian professor and his team will refine the programming language behind smart contracts and produce a verifying compiler to improve functionality.
Ultimately, the group hopes to create an automated service to check for bugs in smart contract code. The goal is to make these contracts safer to use.
Associate professor Scholtz sees major potential for the revolutionary project, explaining that “[we] will deliver research papers, software artefacts and opportunities in higher education that have never been seen before in the blockchain space.”
In a press release, he said the project comes at a good time.
“With a market capitalisation of over $200 billion, the need for increased security in cryptocurrencies and distributed ledgers is paramount.”
From South Korea With Love
Fantom is South Korea’s latest crypto export, but certainly not its first. Alongside kimchi, k-pop and Korean beauty products, the country is making a name for itself as a cryptocurrency haven.
South Korean success stories include ICON (ICX), the crypto group partnered with LINE and Samsung Electronics among others.
South Korea is also a world leader in blockchain investment, as industry expert Jea Edman told Forbes magazine back in August.
“The citizens of South Korea were already deeply invested in blockchain, contributing greatly to the global crypto market. If you look at bitcoin alone, South Koreans are responsible for 14% of that market.”
And according to Singapore’s FinTechNews, the South Korean government is on track to invest 1 trillion won on the blockchain, A.I. and big data in 2019.
“[We] will deliver research papers, software artefacts and opportunities in higher education that have never been seen before in the blockchain space.”
This partnership is the latest part of Fantom’s Australian expansion. The company launched in Brisbane last month with the help of NEM.io, and Melbourne is next according to their website.
Global Expansion Recap
The first step in our global expansion and the roadshow in Australia was a great success.
We're glad that we can finally share our recap article and video with you guys.
Check out at the link below!https://t.co/prG0G0jMLGhttps://t.co/FTE8gnmeIn— Fantom Foundation (@FantomFDN) November 14, 2018
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