"VITOZ aims to create an environment where financial institutions or corporations can handle the issuance and movement of assets, as well as payment and settlement, by consolidating with the VITOZ infrastructure (infrastructure), without building a separate Blockchain system."
Chief Strategy Officer Park Sang-hun of VITOZ said VITOZ could become a Blockchain infrastructure partner when the era of won-based stablecoins arrives. Founded in 2022, VITOZ is a digital finance infrastructure company based on Blockchain technology. It is designing the rails (Rail·network) and signaling systems that underpin the safe movement, payment, and settlement of virtual assets issued by financial institutions and corporations.
VITOZ has designed a hybrid Blockchain architecture with regulatory compliance in mind. A hybrid Blockchain is a mixed structure that combines the openness of a public (open) Blockchain and the security of a private (private) Blockchain. It securely manages sensitive data of corporations or institutions privately, while transparently disclosing only the necessary verification data to resolve speed and expense issues.
Based on this, the company is focusing on a payment and settlement infrastructure business that enables virtual assets to be used in everyday life. So far, it has conducted technology verification in four areas: cross-border payment, online commerce, offline payment, policy funds, and regional finance.
Recently, together with the mobile meal voucher platform SIKSIN, it also began a pilot to apply stablecoins to the electronic meal voucher payment environment. It also completed a proof of concept (PoC·Proof of Concept) with Modetour Network(080160) to allow inbound tourists and foreign residents in Korea to purchase travel products with stablecoins without a separate currency exchange process.
After graduating from the Department of Internet Information at Suwon Science College, Park, the CSO, built a career of more than 20 years in securities ledgers and system trading at Koscom, Hanwha Investment & Securities(003530), and Daol Investment & Securities(030210). Park then served in Singapore as the executive director overseeing IT at Malaysian futures firm MSP International and as managing director for the public sector at ITCEN GLOBAL(124500), and now oversees mid- to long-term strategy and the stablecoin and virtual asset finance business at VITOZ. The following is a Q&A with Park.
─What led you to pursue stablecoins as a new business?
"We saw an era coming when virtual assets would be used for actual payments and settlements. The clearest sign of that change is the AI Agent (software that uses artificial intelligence to achieve goals and perform tasks on behalf of users).
In an environment where AI orders on behalf of people or trades directly with other AI services, small, repeated transactions must be processed in real time without human intervention. Existing payment methods have limitations. A means is needed that can move 24/7 in real time, has stable value, and allows transaction conditions to be set by program, and stablecoins fit this.
In Korea, a won stablecoin and a deposit token being piloted by the Bank of Korea are being discussed separately. Although the issuers and legal natures differ, they share the direction that a payment asset based on the value of the won moves on a distributed ledger. Whatever system is established, infrastructure is needed to support the asset if it is to be used in practice."
─What sets VITOZ apart?
"Public Blockchains that currently handle virtual assets have, by nature, evolved with the goals of decentralization and deregulation. In contrast, real-world financial regulation requires strict controls such as anti-money laundering (AML·Anti-Money Laundering), know-your-customer (KYC·Know Your Customer), and asset freezes. With the existing public framework alone, it is impossible to fully accommodate a stablecoin where regulatory compliance is essential. VITOZ solved this problem not in the stablecoin itself, but in the 'infrastructure structure where issuance and distribution occur.' The unique differentiator of VITOZ is that it has structurally and completely accommodated two seemingly incompatible elements: regulatory compliance and openness."
─What is the background to partnering with SIKSIN and Modetour Network?
"For Blockchain payments to become actual financial infrastructure, they must operate stably in environments people use every day. The two companies are partners to verify different payment environments. With Modetour Network, we are carrying out cross-border payment and settlement. When inbound tourists buy travel products, currency exchange, overseas payment fees, and multiple stages of settlement arise. Together with Jeonbuk Bank (JB Financial Group(175330)), which has expertise in finance tailored to foreigners, and technology partner Ringnet, we verified a model that reduces currency exchange steps and consolidates everything from payment to partner settlement.
With SIKSIN, we are verifying an environment where small payments concentrate in a short time. In situations where users flood in, like lunchtime, it is important that payment authorization, asset movement, and settlement information are stably consolidated. The performance of a test environment and the stability of a live service environment are separate issues."
─What role will VITOZ play when a won stablecoin is commercialized?
"We are not an issuer but an infrastructure provider. Licensing for issuance, management of reserve assets, and assurance of redemption claims are areas for licensed institutions. VITOZ provides the ledger infrastructure for those institutions to issue and manage assets, and supports the issued assets to be consolidated with wallets, payments, and settlements. As multiple institutions can issue in different ways, we aim for common infrastructure that is not dependent on a particular issuer.
Regulatory compliance does not end at the issuance stage. Controls such as transaction permissions, limits, and asset freezes must also operate during distribution. Customer identification and risk assessment should be performed in financial institutions' systems, but the results must be designed to be reflected in Blockchain transactions. Regulation is not the final hurdle to clear but the first design requirement."
─What are VITOZ's future goals?
"It is to create the standard for infrastructure that uses virtual assets in real finance and daily life. The blueprint has three stages. First, apply the infrastructure to corporations that need payments and settlements, and verify it in real service environments. Next is the stage where partners expand the scope of use, starting from integrating a single payment to using wallets and support for asset issuance. The last is the ecosystem stage, where some core partners participate as validators and jointly operate the network. Modetour Network's participation as a validator after payment verification is an example.
As this structure spreads, the walls between services come down. Travel agency points are used only for travel, and meal vouchers only at restaurants, but if they are consolidated on the same infrastructure, what is earned from travel can become lunch money. VITOZ aims for issuance to be as strict as a bank, and usage to be as easy as a simple payment."