{"id":259612,"date":"2026-05-07T00:07:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/uncategorized\/2026\/05\/07\/the-untold-story-of-south-koreas-crypto-pioneers-what-you-need-to-know\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T00:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:07:52","slug":"the-untold-story-of-south-koreas-crypto-pioneers-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/social\/2026\/05\/07\/the-untold-story-of-south-koreas-crypto-pioneers-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"The Untold Story of South Korea&#8217;s Crypto Pioneers: What You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Where did South Korea\u2019s cryptocurrency industry begin? TokenPost and Professor Kim Hyung-joong trace the roots of Korea\u2019s crypto scene in the project &#8220;Pioneers of Korean Cryptocurrency,&#8221; documenting the hidden backstories of its early builders. We present only key excerpts from episodes released every Tuesday. For the full, deeper report, visit <span>frontier.tokenpost.kr<\/span>. <strong>[Editor&#8217;s note]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>1991. At a time when even the word &#8220;hacking&#8221; 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 \u201991 and Jo Yong-sang from the Class of \u201990. They called the club KUS. In 1992, Lee Hee-jo and others from POSTECH\u2019s computer engineering Class of \u201989 formed an elite, small-group club called PLUS.<\/p>\n<p>Graduates of these two powerhouse clubs became a pipeline of talent that helped lead Korea\u2019s tech and security industries. AhnLab (Ahn Cheol-soo Lab), one of Korea\u2019s leading cybersecurity firms, brought Lee Hee-jo on as CTO; he later joined the faculty at Korea University. Kim Hwi-kang, the Class of \u201994 student who served as KUS\u2019s 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 &#8220;hackers&#8221; exploiting network vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Coinone\u2019s Cha Myung-hoon also came from PLUS. His team finished third at the 2009 DEFCON CTF \u2014 the best result ever for a Korean team. DEFCON CTF is the premier competition often called the &#8220;Olympics of hacking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the finals, each team is assigned a server; teams score points by defending their own server while penetrating opponents\u2019 servers to capture flags. Placing at DEFCON CTF gave him strong confidence in both coding and security.<\/p>\n<p>The year his team placed third at DEFCON coincided with Bitcoin\u2019s 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\u2019s top hackers.<\/p>\n<p>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, &#8220;How can that work without a server?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Want to read the rest?<\/strong> <strong><span>Continue with the full Frontier article<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"> <span><img alt=\"src=contents\/crawler-dev\/image\/2026\/05\/CP-2025-0041\/image-5e05982b-9c2f-4e1f-a48e-c350c91d9011.png\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The history of South Korea&#8217;s cryptocurrency industry is explored in the &#8220;Korean Cryptocurrency Pioneers&#8221; project, revealing hidden stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/thumbnail\/2026\/05\/CP-2025-0041\/thumb-10e59765-f4d2-4e00-935c-f71a14dacdbf.jpg","footnotes":""},"categories":[278100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Untold Story of South Korea&#039;s Crypto Pioneers: What You Need to Know<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The history of South Korea&#039;s cryptocurrency industry is explored in the &quot;Korean Cryptocurrency Pioneers&quot; project, revealing hidden stories.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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