Say, the blockchain chosen by Solana's core team, announces expansion of investment in the Korean market ahead of the Giga upgrade.

Gigabit upgrade promises 50x performance boost... "Korea is a key expansion market."
Ethereum compatibility + Solana-level speeds, 0.5-second payments, and over 10 million monthly active users.

The program 'Cryptolabs', jointly planned by Korea Economic TV and 071 Labs, a web3 incubation and investment company, today released an interview with Justin Barlow of the SEI Foundation, which is attracting attention as a next-generation layer 1 blockchain.

Justin Barlow entered the Web3 market in 2016 at the intersection of economics and blockchain technology. He gained experience in high-performance blockchain development as an early core member of Solana.

In the interview, he recalled, "The biggest obstacle at Solana was its lack of compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem." He explained that this experience gave him deep confidence in the financial blockchain platform built by founders from Goldman Sachs and Robinhood, ultimately leading him to decide to join the foundation.

Say is currently considered the fastest and most cost-effective Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain.

Looking at specific performance metrics, it boasts exceptional processing speeds, capable of processing over 20,000 transactions for less than $1, with all transactions finalized within an average of 0.5 seconds (500 milliseconds). This is considered to have simultaneously solved the speed and cost issues faced by existing blockchains.

Recognized for its technological prowess, Say has surpassed 10 million monthly active users (MAU) and has seen products from global financial institutions such as BlackRock and Apollo operate on the Say network.

Sei plans to take it to the next level with the soon-to-be-introduced 'Giga Upgrade'.

This upgrade aims to improve Sayi's processing performance by more than 50x compared to the existing EVM chain. This is expected to be a turning point for the ecosystem's expansion into areas where high-performance infrastructure is essential, such as DeFi, gaming, social media, and AI.

Justin Barlow presented his vision, saying, "Say is building a 'decentralized Wall Street' based on the belief that the future of finance will operate on the blockchain."

Justin Barlow, in particular, expressed strong interest in the Korean market. He evaluated Korea as an innovative market and made clear his intention to actively expand investment in the Say ecosystem.

Joohoon Choi joohoon@blockstreet.co.kr