Publication date: October 2, 2026 · Bitbase Research
Korea Blockchain Week 2026, the ninth edition, was held in Seoul from 29 September to 1 October at Walkerhill. For the two main-conference days, 30 September and 1 October, the organiser FactBlock reported 12,500 cumulative person-times, a self-reported count in which anyone present on both days is counted twice.
What follows is limited to what had been published by the evening of 1 October, Seoul time: the organiser's opening and closing releases, a post-event release from Dunamu, which operates Upbit, and reports by Korean and international media. Attendance and speaker figures are the organiser's own and have not been independently audited; where a figure has not been published, the text says so.
For the event itself (who runs it, every edition since 2018 and how its attendance figures are counted), see Korea Blockchain Week: FactBlock's Conference Week in Seoul, Editions and Attendance. For what had been announced before the opening, see Korea Blockchain Week 2026: What to Expect in Seoul, Dates, Speakers and Tickets.
What happened at Korea Blockchain Week 2026
KBW2026 with Upbit, the edition's official title, was built around two events with separate admission [1]. The Upbit Institutional Summit on 29 September was a private, invitation-only summit on the integration of digital assets into traditional finance, held in Walker Hall at Grand Walkerhill Seoul [1]. The main conference for ticket holders followed on 30 September and 1 October at Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts, on three stages the organiser named as the 0G, Stable and BitGo stages [1][2][3].
The summit's sessions are known only from Dunamu's account [4]. Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Crypto Council, discussed US digital asset policy and market-structure legislation, including the CLARITY Act, with SeonJoo Yoon, Dunamu's chief brand and impact officer, and said that digital assets and traditional finance will eventually merge. Brian Quintenz, a former CFTC commissioner, and others discussed the stablecoin market since the GENIUS Act; Caroline Pham of MoonPay Institutional, Johann Kerbrat of Robinhood and others discussed the conditions for tokenisation to move beyond the experimental stage to the issuance and circulation of real assets; and serving officials of Indonesia's OJK, Malaysia's Securities Commission and Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission, unnamed in the release, described their regulatory direction. Dunamu presented GIWA Chain, the on-chain authentication system Dojang and the privacy technology BOJAGI as infrastructure. Two National Assembly members, Sungwon Kim and Byoungdeok Min, gave congratulatory remarks in person, and US Representative Bryan Steil did so by video [4].
On 30 September Andrew Park, chief executive of FactBlock, and Kyoungsuk Oh, chief executive of Upbit, opened the main conference, according to TokenPost, which photographed the opening [5]. Park said three doors, institutions, rules and AI, were opening at once for the digital asset industry; Oh named accessibility, connectivity and exportability as requirements and said regulation would become a shared capability that can be exported rather than a cost [5]. Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer of Maelstrom, introduced FLOP, which the organiser described as a concept for a currency and payment network for AI agents [3]. Joe Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and chairman and chief executive of MetaMask, outlined a vision of taking MetaMask beyond a crypto wallet into a financial operating system covering stablecoins and tokenised stocks [3]. Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine, argued that tokenising traditional financial assets would draw institutions into digital assets [2]. Jeff Yan, chief executive of Hyperliquid Labs, said around-the-clock trading is not what sets onchain venues apart from traditional exchanges: "Onchain finance really, at its core, means that users have still retained control and custody of their funds" [6].
SungGuan Yun, director general of the Bank of Korea's Office of Digital Currency, said at a session photographed by Pinpoint News that Project Agorá, in which the Bank of Korea participates, had completed its prototype and live-transaction tests, with a minimum viable product and matching governance planned next. National Assembly member Byoungdeok Min spoke in a session titled "Korea's Digital Asset Policy Moment", also photographed by Pinpoint News. At the main conference Quintenz said the role of regulators is not only to block risk at its source but to create conditions in which market participants can recognise and manage it, and Ripple president Monica Long said she expects opportunities to trade tokenised real-world assets around the clock, or to use them as collateral, to widen within five years [2].
On 1 October TechM reported a panel on Korea's next generation of digital asset exchanges, moderated by the vice chairman of the exchange body DAXA, and Pinpoint News a panel of securities firms on tokenised securities. In its closing release, the organiser described the edition as a shift towards an "institution-centred conference" (기관 중심 컨퍼런스) linking traditional finance and the digital asset industry [2].
Who spoke
The organiser reported 290 speakers at the main conference, across 120 sessions on three stages [2]. With the 40 speakers of the invitation-only summit, the organiser's opening release gave 330 in all [3]. The organiser said 115 of the 290, or 39.7%, came from finance, policy, and digital asset investment and services; it did not break down the other 175 [2].
Published speaker lists are not evidence of who appeared; the official speaker page and agenda changed between 28 September and 30 September [1]. The names below rest on reports published after each appearance.
Reported by independent media. Andrew Park and Kyoungsuk Oh at the opening, photographed by TokenPost [5]; Jeff Yan, reported by The Block without stating that its reporter was present [6]; SungGuan Yun and Byoungdeok Min, photographed by Pinpoint News; panellists on exchanges and on tokenised securities on 1 October, photographed by TechM and Pinpoint News; Harry Jung, managing director of Nxum Group, at a press conference on 1 October, photographed by TokenPost; and Johann Kerbrat of Robinhood, an official speaker according to TechM, which cited industry sources and named no session.
Reported by the organiser or its partners. Arthur Hayes, Joe Lubin, Tom Lee, Brian Quintenz, SeonJoo Yoon, Monica Long and Bo Hines, chief executive of Tether USA₮ [2][3][4]; Gene Fang of Moody's Ratings, Charles Jansen of S&P Global and Chetan Karkhanis of Franklin Templeton, on data and ratings for institutional investment [2]. Balaji Srinivasan is named among the speakers in the closing release, and his speaker card was marked virtual [1][2]. Patrick Witt and Jonathan Hurowitz, a senior adviser at the US Department of the Treasury, appeared at the summit, according to Dunamu [4].
How many people attended — and who said so
The organiser FactBlock reported 12,500 cumulative person-times (연인원) for the main conference on 30 September and 1 October [2]. A person present on both days is counted twice, so it is not the number of individual attendees, and like every attendance figure for this event it is self-reported and unaudited. The figure comes from FactBlock's closing release, carried by GameFocus and Weekly Hankook on 1 October.
Three limits apply. It covers the main conference only: the summit on 29 September sat outside main-conference admission, and its attendance has not been published [1][4]. It is a figure as of 1 October: GameFocus carried the release at 16:38 KST on the final day, and the organiser's wording is that attendance "recorded" (기록했다) 12,500, not that this is a final total [2]. And it is the only attendance figure published for 2026.
As of 1 October the organiser had not published a headcount, attendance for the summit, a figure for the week as a whole, the share of international attendees, the number of booths, post-event counts of side events or participating companies, or the number of tickets sold and any cap. Tickets sold out on 28 September, two days before the opening, according to the organiser [3]. The official site carried no post-event figures [1], and no English-language post-event release had appeared.
At least one later report of the closing release omitted the term for person-times and described 12,500 as the number of people who attended over two days. That is the same figure reworded, not a second count, and the 2025 figure has been restated the same way.
What was announced
The announcements reported from KBW2026 were plans, demonstrations, concepts and policy statements; none of the items below was a product release.
Dunamu set out plans, not launches. It plans to combine its trading, custody, travel-rule compliance and abnormal-transaction detection with GIWA, which it said it would use as base infrastructure linking domestic financial institutions with global on-chain finance [7]. It also plans to add payment and settlement functions for corporate activity, but disclosed neither a launch date nor the participating financial institutions, TokenPost reported [7].
Two items were demonstrations. Dunamu set up an Upbit Zone and held a GIWA acceleration showcase of projects in five areas: decentralised finance, real-world assets, consumer and social services, zero-knowledge-based authentication, and AI and Web3. NHN KCP demonstrated payment and settlement technology based on a won-denominated stablecoin [2].
Three items were concepts or intentions. Hayes's FLOP was introduced as a concept and Lubin's financial operating system for MetaMask as a vision, both described above [3]. FactBlock said it intends to set up regular dialogue between institutions and, for companies that confirm an interest, to support use-case discovery, partner introductions, joint verification and proofs of concept, TokenPost reported [5]; it named no timetable and no institutions.
The rest were policy statements. Witt's, Quintenz's and the Bank of Korea's remarks are above. At a press conference on 1 October, Harry Jung of Nxum Group discussed won-stablecoin rules in Korea and said, according to TokenPost, quoted here in our translation from Korean: "As with the GENIUS Act, if the requirements are properly set and the appropriate licence is obtained, it does not matter whether it is a bank or a technology company."
How this edition compared with previous ones
On the same basis, cumulative person-times over the two main-conference days as published by the organiser, 2025 recorded 28,000 and 2026 recorded 12,500 [8][2]. Both are self-reported and unaudited, and two qualifications apply to reading them side by side.
The two counts cover different programmes. In 2025 the institutional stage was one of four main-conference stages, alongside the Sui, Stable and 0G stages, according to Financial News, a publication whose publisher is the event's founder [9], so it fell within the 28,000. In 2026 institutional sessions also had a day of their own, the invitation-only summit on 29 September, which sat outside the main conference and is not part of the organiser's 12,500 [1][2]. The 2026 main conference still included institutional and policy sessions.
Both editions sold out. In 2025 the tickets prepared for the event sold out on 16 September, a week before it opened, according to the organiser's release as carried by Bridge Economy [8]; in 2026 tickets sold out on 28 September [3]. Neither edition's releases gave the number of tickets sold or a cap, so in both years the person-time count was bounded by a supply that has not been disclosed.
The same Financial News report gave more than 300 speakers and about 130 sessions on four stages for 2025, both approximate [9]; for 2026 the organiser reported 290 speakers and 120 sessions on three stages, plus 40 speakers at the summit, which 2025 did not have [2][3].
Earlier figures on the same basis were about 8,700 for 2022, at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas, according to FactBlock as cited by Financial News, whose publisher is the event's founder [10], and about 6,000 for 2023, at The Shilla Seoul, for which the organiser had limited ticket sales to 3,000 for venue safety [11]. The 2024 figure is stated differently: the organiser's English post-event release reported "over 17,000 participants" for the seventh edition as a whole, which names participants rather than person-times and covers the edition rather than two main-conference days [12].
According to the 2025 Financial News report, KBW2025: IMPACT was co-hosted by the exchange Bithumb and held at Walkerhill [9]; that year the organiser announced that the main conference would be renamed from KBW: IMPACT to KBW [8]. The 2026 edition was KBW2026 with Upbit, with Upbit as Presenting Partner, and was again held at Walkerhill [1][2].
Frequently asked questions
When and where was Korea Blockchain Week 2026 held? In Seoul, at Walkerhill: the invitation-only Upbit Institutional Summit on 29 September at Grand Walkerhill Seoul, then the main conference on 30 September and 1 October at Walkerhill Hotels & Resorts.
How many people attended? The organiser reported 12,500 cumulative person-times for the two main-conference days, counting anyone who came on both days twice. That is not a count of individual attendees, it is unaudited, and as of 1 October no headcount, summit attendance or whole-week figure had been published.
How many speakers were there? The organiser reported 290 speakers and 120 sessions at the main conference, and 40 speakers at the summit, 330 speakers in all.
Could ticket holders attend the Upbit Institutional Summit? No. It was a private, invitation-only event on 29 September and was not covered by main-conference passes.
What did Upbit's operator Dunamu announce? Plans rather than launches: combining its trading, custody, compliance and abnormal-transaction detection with GIWA as infrastructure linking domestic financial institutions with global on-chain finance, and adding payment and settlement functions, with no launch date given.
How does the 2026 attendance figure compare with 2025? On the same basis, the organiser reported 28,000 cumulative person-times for 2025 and 12,500 for 2026. The 2025 count included an institutional stage inside the main conference, the 2026 count excludes the separate summit, and both editions sold out with no ticket numbers or caps published.
Related reading
Other Bitbase articles on this topic:
- Consensus: CoinDesk's Crypto, Blockchain and AI Conference, Editions and Attendance
- ETHDenver: SporkDAO's Community-Owned Ethereum Conference, Editions and Attendance
- TOKEN2049 Singapore 2026: What to Expect, Dates, Speakers and Tickets
- From Pizza to Unit of Account: The Prehistory of Bitcoin Price Discovery
- What Is Double Spending in Crypto? The Problem Bitcoin Solved
References
[1] Korea Blockchain Week, official site, Upbit Institutional Summit page, agenda and events calendar, accessed 1 October 2026. koreablockchainweek.com
[2] FactBlock, closing release on KBW2026, as published by GameFocus, 1 October 2026. gamefocus.co.kr
[3] FactBlock, opening release on KBW2026, as published by Inven Global, 30 September 2026. invenglobal.com
[4] Dunamu, release on the Upbit Institutional Summit, as published by Wowtale, 30 September 2026. wowtale.net
[5] TokenPost, report on the opening of KBW2026, 30 September 2026. tokenpost.kr
[6] The Block, report on Jeff Yan's remarks at Korea Blockchain Week, 30 September 2026. theblock.co
[7] TokenPost, report on Dunamu's plans presented at KBW2026, 30 September 2026. tokenpost.kr
[8] Bridge Economy, report on KBW2025: IMPACT carrying FactBlock's release, September 2025. viva100.com
[9] Financial News, report on KBW2025: IMPACT, September 2025. fnnews.com
[10] Financial News, report on KBW 2022: IMPACT, August 2022. fnnews.com
[11] VentureSquare, report on KBW2023: IMPACT, September 2023. venturesquare.net
[12] FactBlock, post-event press release on Korea Blockchain Week 2024, 17 September 2024. prnewswire.com
Disclaimer: This article is editorial coverage from Bitbase Research about an industry event, provided for information only. Bitbase is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by this event or its organizers. Attendance, speaker and sponsorship figures are as published by the organizers and have not been independently audited. Nothing here constitutes investment, trading, tax, or financial advice. Event details such as dates, venues and speaker line-ups can change, so refer to the official event sources for the latest information.
