Where did South Korea’s cryptocurrency industry begin? TokenPost and Professor Kim Hyung-joong trace the roots of Korea’s crypto scene in the project “Pioneers of Korean Cryptocurrency,” documenting the hidden backstories of its early builders. We present only key excerpts from episodes released every Tuesday. For the full, deeper report, visit frontier.tokenpost.kr. [Editor’s note]
1991. At a time when even the word “hacking” was unfamiliar in South Korea, a group of KAIST computer science students formed a hacking club. Founding members included Yang Ki-chang and Lee Seok-chan from the Class of ’91 and Jo Yong-sang from the Class of ’90. They called the club KUS. In 1992, Lee Hee-jo and others from POSTECH’s computer engineering Class of ’89 formed an elite, small-group club called PLUS.
Graduates of these two powerhouse clubs became a pipeline of talent that helped lead Korea’s tech and security industries. AhnLab (Ahn Cheol-soo Lab), one of Korea’s leading cybersecurity firms, brought Lee Hee-jo on as CTO; he later joined the faculty at Korea University. Kim Hwi-kang, the Class of ’94 student who served as KUS’s fourth president, founded A3 Security and now teaches at Korea University as well. Although PLUS and KUS alumni were widely recognized as promising, the public still often viewed them through the stigma of “hackers” exploiting network vulnerabilities.
Coinone’s Cha Myung-hoon also came from PLUS. His team finished third at the 2009 DEFCON CTF — the best result ever for a Korean team. DEFCON CTF is the premier competition often called the “Olympics of hacking.”
In the finals, each team is assigned a server; teams score points by defending their own server while penetrating opponents’ servers to capture flags. Placing at DEFCON CTF gave him strong confidence in both coding and security.
The year his team placed third at DEFCON coincided with Bitcoin’s debut. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense established U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM). In 2010, South Korea created the ROK Cyber Command under the Defense Intelligence Agency. Cha Myung-hoon was assigned to the ROK Cyber Command, a unit staffed by some of the country’s top hackers.
He first encountered Bitcoin while serving there. He was intrigued by the claim that you could send and receive money without a server. Most people brushed that idea aside; as a computer science major, he wondered, “How can that work without a server?”
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