Optimism Deepens South Korea Push With Dunamu, Toss, DB Securities Partnerships

Optimism, the blockchain infrastructure company whose OP Stack powers more than 32 Layer 2 networks worldwide, is stepping up its South Korea business through partnerships with Dunamu’s GIWA blockchain, Toss and DB Securities.

The company said July 16 that it plans to expand its on-chain financial infrastructure business for South Korean financial institutions, fintech firms and cryptocurrency companies.

Optimism provides blockchain infrastructure built on Ethereum’s security while improving transaction speed and cost. Its technology is designed to let users process transactions on Ethereum more quickly and cheaply. Companies including Coinbase, Kraken, Sony and Dunamu run their own blockchains using Optimism’s technology.

Optimism expects demand in South Korea for infrastructure that meets performance, regulatory compliance and privacy requirements to increase as on-chain finance gains traction in areas including security token offerings, real-world asset tokenization and stablecoins.

Its OP Enterprise product is an institutional financial infrastructure solution designed to let financial institutions and companies operate finance, trading and payment functions on blockchain networks without building their own blockchain development teams.

Clients can receive support across technical operations, from sequencer management to security patches and upgrades. They can also customize compliance rules and fee policies to fit their own infrastructure.

In May, Optimism signed a memorandum of understanding with Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, to enhance the technology behind the GIWA blockchain and lay the groundwork for its global expansion. The companies plan to review digital-asset infrastructure business models in South Korea based on the OP Stack and explore GIWA’s potential overseas expansion.

On July 8, Optimism signed a memorandum of understanding with Toss and launched a proof-of-concept project to assess the feasibility of building won-based digital financial infrastructure.

Over the next three months, the companies will test whether the OP Stack, Optimism’s open-source technology stack, can be applied to South Korea’s digital finance environment. They also plan to examine core requirements for institutional financial infrastructure, including regulatory compliance, privacy protection and performance.

Optimism is also working with DB Securities on a Jeju-focused security token offering and real-world asset initiative, as well as on identifying global cooperation models.

The company plans to combine DB Securities’ financial network and business capabilities with Optimism’s Ethereum Layer 2 infrastructure to develop business models that convert tangible and intangible assets linked to Jeju — including smart-farm assets, livestock assets and Korean intellectual property — into security token offering and real-world asset formats.

Optimism said it plans to pursue additional partnership opportunities with South Korea’s financial sector and digital-asset industry. It aims to expand use cases in regulated finance, including securities, cards, payments and fintech, using the OP Stack and OP Enterprise.

"South Korea has regulatory changes and a digital-asset market that give it the potential to grow faster than any market we have entered," OP Labs Chief Executive Officer Jing Wang said. "Optimism is building infrastructure suited to that market."

He added that regulated financial institutions are also increasingly choosing Optimism. Partnerships have expanded from Bitpanda in Europe, Kraken’s Ink in the US and Mitsui in Japan to Dunamu, Toss and DB Securities in South Korea.

Optimism is also expanding institutional infrastructure use cases globally. Bitpanda recently announced it would build Vision Chain, which it described as Europe’s first Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation-compliant chain, using the OP Stack.