WTF? North Korea Plans to Host a Global Crypto Conference in October

The country with the most centralized regime in the world wishes to host a conference on the most decentralized currency and technology in the world. Seriously. North Korea appears to be actually planning an international conference (which is already surprising) that will revolve around cryptocurrency and blockchain. Shocked much?

According to a report by the South Korean new agency Yonhap, the North Korean tyrannical rule is organizing a two-day cryptocurrency conference in the state’s capital, Pyongyang, which will commence on October 1. After the conference, on October 3, the organizers schedule meetings of the world’s leading crypto experts – oh, yes, they’re supposed to arrive in North Korea, mind you – with the regime’s top business officials. And there’s more… during the conference, North Korea wants to show off the state’s technological capacities in the crypto field. Yes, this is still a serious article.

But sarcasm aside, one has to admit that it’s quite grotesque that a country, whose ultra-centralized absolute regime isolates its own citizens by restricting almost any utilization of personal technology that might open them up to the world (including of course cryptocurrency), plans to host a conference on a technology whose very own definition is an utter antithesis of it.

It’s not that North Korea never dipped its toes into cryptocurrency – but not for or by its citizens, but solely for and by its very small ruling class. According to a South Korean research unit of Korea Development Bank, the North Korean regime attempted to mine cryptocurrencies – apparently without too much success – as a way to launder money and bypass the heavy sanctions imposed on it due to the state’s nuclear program. In another incident – evidently successful this time – North Korea managed to pilfer cryptocurrency whose worth is valued in the billions in 2017.

Introducing cryptocurrency in North Korea is a fantastic idea – but not only by/to the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un, but by/to the general North Korean population.