North Korea Plans to Hold International Blockchain Conference in October

South Korean news agency Yonhap recently reported that the dictator nation of North Korea would be hosting an international blockchain conference coming October 2018. The media publication has cited Radio Free Asia (RFA), a U.S-based radio broadcast service, as the source of this news.

The source stated that the nuclear nation is set to hold the first-ever Korean blockchain conference that will be held in North Korea’s capital city of Pyongyang, and will be a two-day event starting October 1.

The event is expected to attract experts from the blockchain industry who will be also conducting talks and meeting with the North Korean business officials on the following day, on October 3. A security expert, who refused to be identified, told the RFA that this attempt from the Korean country is aimed at ‘showing off’ its capabilities in the new evolving technologies.

North Korea is known for its notorious activities in the past for carrying out phasing and hacking attacks on the South Korean exchanges. The nuclear nation is often accused of making attempts to steal digital assets from these exchanges. The country’s notorious Lazarus Group have often been named several times behind such malicious attacks.

Moreover, North Korea’s involvement in digital currencies is said to have spiked up to evade U.S. sanctions as well as to fund its nuclear program.

Another report from Yonhap suggests that North Korea had also tried on cryptocurrency mining last year around July 2017, of course on a small scale. A research wing of Korea’s state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) claimed that Chosun Expo, a North Korean technology firm has been developing a market-exchange platform for digital currencies.

The report noted that the nuclear nation is interested in the defining "characteristics of cryptocurrencies, including anonymity, difficulties of tracing money and cash ability.” But the KBD report also mentioned that even though North Korea tried its hand over mining, there are little chances of them being successful in this activity.

The report also goes to mention that an average North Korean has got little knowledge regarding cryptocurrencies. If the news of blockchain conference turns out to be true, it will be more of a state-sponsored activity.

It remains to be seen as to which country would like to engage in discussing new technological prospects with a state which has been sidelined by major global economies over the last decade.