 I'm not being racist or anything, but it's for you white people. Koreans don't care literally. Like literally. We cannot care less. You know, we don't give a f***. We don't care who is getting hacked or who's dying or whatever. Because we don't give a f***, you know. I just wanted to let out all the white people out there and all that. Thank you. Literally, do not care. Hi, I'm Molly Jane and we're here today talking to one of South Korea's most famous crypto bloggers, Spunky and his channel, BitGosu. If you can't get over 1,000 won this year, I'm going to get a new one. So if you speak Korean, you can go check out his channel. But if you don't speak Korean, stay tuned with us on Cointelegraph where we talk with him about everything crypto in South Korea. Alright, hi. Nice to meet you and hear you. Nice to meet you too. I guess my first question is super basic, but you'll obviously know is how big really is the Korean crypto market, you know, in both in terms of crypto and blockchain. I think the Korean crypto market, by a percentage of population, it's the biggest in the world. Because pretty much one out of three or four person has bought Bitcoin or held Bitcoin here before. So people are aware and there are insane amount of exchanges like Korean won, local pairing exchanges in Korea and they're all running a business. So it just shows that the hype and everything is really, really big here. But unfortunately, it's all based on speculation pretty much. You know, it's Koreans are known to be hardcore gamblers globally and people want some life-changing moments, ASAP and crypto. It just seems like the next ride that can make it come true. Is that for people of all ages? Or do you see this more in the younger population? I think it's for all ages. And Koreans are kind of like that in general. Me myself being a Korean, I'm pretty much a Dijon gambler as well. But there's a lot of excitement and Koreans are very impatient people. But crypto is very fast. So in every category kind of fits the culture, especially the trading side, not really the technical or whatever side, the fundamentals and tech. And I mean, people are not so interested in that. Yeah, I was going to ask about that because you say crypto is so popular there and in Switzerland, where we went actually last summer to do a documentary on their cryptocurrency regulation and culture there, they call themselves the crypto nation because of how crypto-friendly they are. And then Malta calls itself the blockchain island. Does Korea have any title they want to call themselves? I know there's a problem there with the interest of the population, then the government is not as much on board. I would say Koreans are true believers. They're true believers. I mean, it's not like there has been some life-changing tech that came out of this country in the blockchain space so far. I mean, globally there really hasn't been anything. But I mean, a big percentage of the population being aware of crypto and has bought some type of some sort of crypto before just shows that the Koreans actually do believe that this digital currency has a bright future. So I would call the Koreans true believers. True crypto-believers. So one of the big stories we broke last week, or we covered last week, I should say, is that some of the bigger South Korean firms like Samsung are looking at the Samsung coin. So do you think that there are other interesting projects in South Korea that are a bit smaller than Samsung coin that people don't know as much? Because they're not living in Korea? I mean, there's a new coin that's made literally every day in Korea. You know, there's around 150 exchanges in Korea in this tiny country? Yeah, there's like 150 exchanges. Every exchange is listing new coins, trying to lure people to come trade on their platform. And there are new coins coming up, new whatever services. Of course, they're pretty much all a scam, but they're trying. There's new startups coming up. They're trying to do something. They're trying to make a difference, trying to build something up. I mean, it's still very, very much ongoing. It's not as big as it was before towards the end of last year. But I mean, it's still alive. And I mean, big companies like Samsung, Kakao, I mean, they get a lot of attention. But if you're talking about these smaller projects that are kind of trying to come up, move up the ladder, I mean, there's dozens coming up every day. So, since you've been in this space for such a long time, and as you say there, as a coin made every day, do you think that the crypto craze in Korea has calmed down a little bit since the 2017, 2018 Bitcoin price rise? Because I know there was media reports that people even committed suicide because of the fall in Bitcoin prices in Korea. So do you feel like that craze is kind of calmed down now or are they still in the thick of it? I would say there's like a trend. There's like, we call this self like the market meta. It's like a meta. Let's say like towards early last year when Bitcoin was first starting to retrace pretty big time. And there was like an altcoin run and like everybody was just going into altcoins. So it was like an altcoin meta. And after that, towards like mid 2018, the popular coins were like exchange tokens, like trade mining. I mean, I'm pretty sure you guys have heard of that. Kind of started with Chinese F coin, but like every single, there are like 100 exchanges coming out of everywhere, like left and right with these trading exchange tokens. So that kind of drove the next drive. Like it was the next meta. It was like the exchange token, the trade mining meta. And after that kind of dried out, it became an IEO meta, meaning like initial exchange offerings coming from here and there. So people started concentrating a lot on IEOs. So they're like, what's next IEO? What's going to be the next big one? Blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, the trend keeps on changing. The craze is always there. It's just that people focus on different methods of like fundraising or like listing or some kind of pumping up. We at coin telegraph are always covering news pieces about the government in Seoul using blockchain for all these various administrative tasks, administrative things, trying to make it more paperless, more streamlined. Do people notice that? Or is that something we just cover and people in South Korea go on living without realizing that the government is like is testing these blockchain? Well, I'm pretty sure it's not the South Korean government. I think it's just everywhere else. Like everybody, I mean, it gets people's attention, right? It's kind of, you kind of feel like a loser if you don't have blockchain. It's kind of also like a big trend. I mean, all over Korea, like I know a lot of big companies in Korea, the executives would tell their people like why don't we have like some blockchain R&D division or something like that, you know? Like it's like, it's typed everywhere and everybody's doing it, but why aren't we doing it? It's kind of that thing, you know? It's kind of, you have to be kind of, you have to have something related to blockchain to be cool in general, if you know what I'm saying. So I mean, for the government as well, I mean, they don't understand anything, of course they don't, but they want to implement this technology because it has like, its advantages like being very transparent, being like this, the whole hacking issues, you know, blockchains is you can't really hack that stuff. It's a technology that could be replaced to replace a lot of previous services or some kind of service providers that they had. So they're looking into it. I'm pretty sure it's not just Korea, but everywhere else also. So talking about the hacking thing that brings it up, because like, maybe you don't know, but I'm a managing editor here at Cointelegraph, so I'm on the breaking news shift, you know, 12 hours a day, multiple days a week. And one of the stories that gets the most buzz is whenever there's something about North Korea. North Korea is hacking everyone. North Korea is funding their nuclear weapons with crypto. North Korea had a blockchain conference and loved it. Like, is this just hype stories people like to read about? As a South Korean crypto blogger, do you every day feel the threat of North Korea hacking your crypto or is this just like, kind of a drop in the bucket? This is something I have to get out there. It's for you white people. It's very, very funny and interesting because Koreans don't give a s***. I mean, you don't care, you know, like North Korea, no. It's not in our interest. And you know, all this thought that keeps coming out of Korea, you know, like something happened in Korea, something that happened in Korea, someone like killed them, some exchange. Koreans don't care, literally. It's always the white people that thought over Korean news, you know, but us, ourselves, we cannot care less. You know, we don't give a f***. We just, we care if our coin is mooning or not, okay? We don't care who is getting hacked or who's dying or whatever. No Korean ever fuzz from Korean news. It's always these white people with weak hands, they just throw everything after one scary Korean article and they piss in their pants and it's just, it pisses us off that you guys fuzz so much from our news, like fake news that we don't really care about. This is, I mean, seriously, like, please stop fudding from over Korean scary news because we don't give a f***, you know? I mean, please, it's just you people that are always fudding everything. I just wanted to let all the white people out there and all that. No, it's super nice to know because, I mean, I published an article about North Korean hackers and it will get, you know, 10 times as many views as any other article I published that day. And not just... Yeah, when a North Korean article goes out like that, we just think, oh, wow. You know, Kim Jong-un, he just made some dough, you know? Lucky him. That's all we think. We don't give a f***. And we don't care. It's the only way we think when we see an article like that. It's like, oh, wait, maybe we should try hacking something. That's all we care about. He's just another guy. North Koreans hacking something is the same as like some random guy from Romania hacking something. It's no difference. Yeah, well, I mean, regardless, hacking articles are our biggest view getters, but in the North Korea aspect, people just, they eat it up. Please stop fighting, everyone. I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, who cares? Let Kim Jong-un just hack stuff and make his money for his missiles. I mean, I mean, we're not scared. Why are you scared? I mean, seriously, it's just the same as any other hacker hacking coins. And there's no difference. He's just another dude that's hacking. Yeah, it doesn't matter. No, I mean, personally, I just, I only care about the views and I care about covering the research into it. Now the US is, you know, there's the Russian hackers that are using Bitcoin. There's this North Korean hackers. I mean, the whole environment is a little bit funny right now, but we're getting a little bit off topic. My question for you is that everyone is in the Twitterverse and the crypto Twitterverse are freaking out that Bitcoin's price is staying stable. You know, there's all this fud and Bitcoin is just You know what? I can explain this as well. You know why? Because Koreans don't care. Again, you don't care, you know? This Bitfinex bullsh** fud has been going around ever since I started crypto. You know, it's like, I don't know, like late 2016 or something, you know, this whole tether bullsh**. Like we are so sick and tired of this stuff, people using the same news to flood people again and again and again and again. It's like, like, whatever like hacking, like tether, like there's certain subjects that we found immunity. It's like, okay, it's going to go by again. It's another thing. I think Koreans fud to different things. It's not really these, it's honestly, it's not new news, you know? Like seriously, I mean, if you guys, I mean, you guys been around for a while, you saw Bitfinex do this stuff with tether, like how many times now? And every time there is some serious fud, you know? Like I fudded a lot before, but now I just couldn't care less. So I think it's Asians finding a lot of immunity over these repeated same news that we just don't care, which is another reason why the price is more stable. Oh, that's just my personal perspective, though. I don't really care anymore. So to put it shortly, all of the big, big news stories that, you know, the Washington Post and New York Times pick up because the Asian market, the South Korean market is so big and important. And because you guys don't care, that's why the price is fine. We don't care. Literally, do not care. Because one thing is Koreans don't use tether. Why the hell should we use tether? We have 150 exchanges that offer Korean won, our local currency pairing with every cryptocurrency out there. We don't even use the Bitcoin pairing market, you know? We find even like the fees very expensive. All these global exchanges, their fees are like 0.25 percent or something. Korean fees are like 0.01 percent or something. Like, so there's no absolutely zero reason for us to use these international exchanges or like these Bitcoin or Ethereum pairings or like this tether bulls*** stuff. We just use our thing. So if tether goes to zero tomorrow, we cannot care less. That's all I can say. So you talked about how Koreans are, you know, it's gambling, it's about the speculative nature. But can you anywhere in Korea use crypto to actually buy something? Go to a store and buy something? Well, that's the funny part. No. No, nowhere. You know what? You know what was very funny? Like in the last year, December, I was holding like a very big event, but I was so sick and tired of all these crypto conferences, the same s***, repetitive boring stuff again and again. So I wanted my event to be very unique. So we called it a crypto festival. And it was just, it was a crypto food festival. So you come to the venue, there's like, there's like 20 different menus and you eat with crypto payments. So I wanted to build that. And we researched like 20 different coins that provide like some kind of crypto payment solution. But nothing worked, like literally. They're just all s***, even like the global products. They're all scams, nothing's functioning. So I could not, we couldn't get a single like crypto payment solution to the venue to make this payment going. So we had to do like the old fashioned way and we had to like use Ethereum and stuff. But anyway, like we tried this and that and we're looking for successful, useful stuff in the crypto space at the moment. But nothing's working in payments. Like everybody talks about these credit cards and master cards and whatever partnerships trying to moon their s***. But nothing really working. So it's kind of very, it's very unfortunate actually. But we're looking for someone to actually make it work because since a lot of Koreans are holding crypto, since they are holding crypto, like we'll actually be willing to use it because our bags are just so heavy. You know, we're just so stuck. We're going to have to wait like five years or something until we make our money back anyway. So we got to do something with it, you know? So we'll be happy to use it if there's like, if it's useful somewhere, but nothing's working here and you can't find anything. And one other thing I wanted to comment back to the tether thing. This is what worries Koreans, okay? When the Korean bad news goes out, we're like, oh f***, the white people are going to f*** again. You know? That's our concern, you know? Like we don't care. Same with tether. It's like, oh f***, this is going to f*** the all the white people again, you know? Like they're going to be like f***ing and like dumping, but like we're not scared, but we're forced to like, I don't know, like trigger stop losses or like sell or something because we expect the white people to sell because they f*** because they're so freaking scared and like weak hands and stuff. So that's another Korean perspective I wanted to get out there. So does anything scare Koreans in the crypto space? Oh, Koreans, of course. Like Korean stuff, it's like Korean legal issues. For example, there are no regulations in Korea. It's not like China. It's not like a lot of countries that crypto is becoming really regulated. And Korea, there's really nothing. There's like literally no law. So you can steal someone's crypto. It's not like you can do anything about it, it's completely the wild, wild west here. So when they talk about regulations and if it's coming out of like a serious voice, that's scary, you know? Or like they talk about taxes or like, oh f***, we have to be sell them. We have to pay taxes. Like, you know, that kind of stuff is very scary, you know? So, but when someone gets hacked or someone dies or some tether goes to, that's stuff we do not care. It's like it's when the Korean government is trying to put pressure on crypto users in Korea, that is what is scary. So it's like, it's a completely different perspective and fun. Thanks for talking about the white people and the fud and the... Okay, I'll make a last comment. Sure. Please, you know, white people, you know, I'm not being racist or anything, but you guys got to stop fudding over Korean like bad news because we don't give a f***, you know, we don't care. Sorry, my language is, I get very emotional talking about this because I've noticed. I've been, it's so many times because of these white people always fudding over Korean news that we do not care less about, you know. So when Kim Jong-un talks about hacking Monero or something like that, you know, give him a clap, you know, he's making some money for himself. So I don't know, it's like, then he's going to make more nukes and it scares us only, not you people, you know. So stop fudding over like scary Korean news because we don't care, we don't sell over that stuff. We only sell because we're scared that you people fall over at itself. You know, it's like it's the only reason. So just please keep that in note and Koreans are very strong people believing us, we're strong holders. Thank you. So here with us was Spunky, one of the most famous South Korean crypto bloggers. So who's your favorite crypto blogger? Let us know in the comments, maybe we'll be able to talk to them in the coming weeks. Do you want to documentary about cryptocurrency and blockchain in South Korea? Write your comment below.