Singapore startup Aelf announced on Monday that its token ELF has been listed on Bithumb, one of South Korea’s major cryptocurrency exchanges platforms. The listing comes at a time when Aelf is looking to tap into South Korea’s thriving blockchain and cryptocurrency industry and comes just over a month after its listing on South Korean trading platform Gopax.
Aelf is a customizable operating system specifically for blockchains. The platform features parallel processing and nodes clustering to enable scaling, multi-chain structure to cope with various business scenarios, and well-governed mechanism to incentivize the self-evolution of the ecosystem. The infrastructure is being developed by Singaporean non-profit organization Aelf Foundation.
“South Korea is a crypto trading powerhouse, backed by a rapidly-growing mainstream community of digital asset owners,” said Aelf’s co-founder Zhuling Chen. “Aelf’s new strategic alignment with Bithumb is highly significant for our community; not only is Bithumb the seventh largest cryptocurrency exchange by global trading volume, meaning users now have greater access to ELF and its ecosystem, it’s also at the forefront of bringing cryptocurrency to real world, commercial applications — one of Aelf’s primary values.”
South Korea is one of the world’s largest markets for cryptocurrency trading. According to data from Cryptocompare.com. Bithumb, a subsidiary of publicly traded company BTCKorea, is the country’s biggest exchange platform for bitcoin and ether trading against the won, capturing 78% and 83% of market share respectively.
Bithumb’s reported sales in 2017 were of ₩333.4 billion (US$312 million), a 171-fold increase compared to the previous year. The company generated a net income of ₩427 billion (US$400 million) with an additional US$90 million in non-operating income, according to BTCKorea’s audit report.
In March, Bithumb partnered with Korea Pay, the country’s largest digital payment services provider, to facilitate the acceptance of cryptocurrencies by 8,000 merchants by the end of the year. The move followed similar partnership deals Bithumb signed with domestic Internet companies to integrate cryptocurrency payments including WeMakePrice, a leading e-commerce operator in South Korea, and Yeogi Eottae, a local hotel booking platform.
The listing of ELF allows Aelf to gain visibility in South Korea where the startup hopes its technology would attract firms looking to jump on the blockchain bandwagon.
Aelf is currently developing the so-called Central Business District, basically a multilayered blockchain system that will enable different industry players to have dedicated blockchains serving their commercial needs on Aelf’s platform.
“As aelf builds its blockchain-based Central Business District that will enable businesses of all sizes to integrate blockchain into their operations, we look forward to working alongside such a prominent exchange renowned for bringing crypto to the masses in South Korea,” said Chen.
Aelf launched its testnet last month. The mainnet is expected to be released later this year.
ELF is up 90% this month, rising from 0.53 USD/ELF at the beginning of April to 1.01 USD/ELF, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com.