South Korean crypto trade Upbit has introduced the launch of Ethereum layer-2 Giwa on testnet — a transfer that might see it broaden previous its position as a crypto trade.
Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto trade by buying and selling quantity, confirmed the information on the Upbit D Convention 2025 on Monday.
Giwa (brief for World Infrastructure for Web3 Entry) will leverage the Optimism Basis’s OP Stack to realize one-second block instances whereas inheriting Ethereum’s safety to settle transactions, in accordance to Giwa’s documentation.
The purpose of Giwa is to make Web3 infrastructure “straightforward and enjoyable for everybody,” it mentioned within the Korean-translated doc.
Different exchanges which have launched their very own blockchains embody Coinbase, which launched Base in August 2023, and Binance, which created BNB Chain in 2019. Each permit builders to construct apps on their respective layer-2 blockchains.
Google, Stripe and Sony Group have additionally launched a sequence or introduced an intention to take action in 2025.
Whereas it didn’t state when a Giwa mainnet would launch, growth instruments are constructed into Giwa’s testnet — Giwa Sepolia — enabling the migration of Ethereum Digital Machine-compatible contracts, whereas a block explorer monitoring testnet exercise is already up and operating.
In response to the Giwa documentation, Upbit’s blockchain will construct blocks each second to ship near-real-time transactions.
Giwa was additionally designed for flexibility, enabling customization because the Optimism Basis’s open-source tech stack continues to evolve.
Giwa has been within the works for a minimum of just a few weeks
The event of GIWA has been within the works for a minimum of three weeks, its GitHub account reveals.
Nevertheless, with over 4 million blocks added to Giwa Sepolia, a one-second block time charge suggests the chain might have launched earlier.
The time period Giwa seems to be derived from curved tiles seen on the roofs of palaces, temples, and conventional hanok homes in South Korea which are sometimes constituted of baked clay and symbolize heritage and safety.
South Korea has been a number one crypto market in 2025
Upbit accounts for round 73% of South Korean crypto buying and selling and has seen the twentieth largest buying and selling quantity amongst crypto exchanges within the final 24 hours at $2.5 billion, CoinGecko knowledge reveals. Its excessive rating comes regardless of being largely confined to the South Korean market.
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The Chainalysis 2025 World Adoption Index, revealed final Wednesday, confirmed South Korea recorded the second largest on-ramp crypto quantity between July 2024 and June 2025 at $1 trillion — trailing solely the US at $4.2 trillion.
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