DeFi market has room for growth in Korea: 1inch co-founder

1Inch plans to expand into a largely untapped Asian market, but a lack of DeFi knowledge is preventing mass adoption

Decentralized-finance (DeFi) aggregator 1inch Network has revealed plans to expand within the Asian market, according to its co-founder Sergej Kunz.

Speaking to Cointelegraph during Korean Blockchain Week (KBW) 2022 on Aug. 8, Kunz said that despite the DeFi market being relatively small in Korea and Asia, there are a number of Asia-based Web3 companies that 1inch is looking to partner with.

However, Kunz also added that the biggest barrier to entry appears to be a lack of understanding about DeFi and how to use crypto wallets:

“As soon as people understand that they can [yield] farm, they can swap, they can exchange and get easy access to cryptocurrencies on Ethereum with a few simple EVM-compatible networks, the market will grow a lot.”

However, Kunz also added that the popularity of blockchain-based gaming in Asia could bring more individuals into the DeFi market.

“Here, there are a lot of people who like gaming and a lot of things like that, so I think the DeFi market can grow a lot in South Korea.”

1Inch’s plan to expand into the Asian market comes as they told Cointelegraph at KBW that they’re currently working on a partnership with metaverse-focused blockchain Klaytn.

The 1Inch network’s main use case is a decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator which scans DEX’s to find pools with the largest liquidity, lowest slippage, and cheapest cryptocurrency exchange rates. 1Inch also provides users with a mobile wallet that can be used for DeFi purposes.

Transactions on the network are powered by the 1INCH token, which is priced at $0.83 at the time of writing.