The Korea Blockchain Week 2026, held in Seoul from September 29 to October 1, focused on the requirements for an agentic economy. Michael Heinrich, CEO of 0G Labs, stated that current Layer 1 blockchains are primarily optimized for financial transactions and lack the necessary infrastructure to support autonomous AI agents.
Experts at the event highlighted the need for integrated tools, including Agentic ID standards, verifiable computing via Trusted Execution Environments, and high-throughput decentralized storage. 0G Labs has developed a stack featuring decentralized storage with a throughput of 50 Gbps to address these requirements.
The x402 payment protocol was cited as a key example of machine-to-machine transactions, having processed over 200 million transactions by mid-2026. Discussions also covered South Korea's regulatory landscape, including the Project Hangang CBDC pilot and a tokenized securities framework scheduled for February 2027.
The conference attracted not only crypto-native participants but also banks and policymakers. The interest stems from the limitations AI agents face when interacting with traditional financial systems, positioning blockchain and stablecoin infrastructure as potential settlement layers for machine-driven economies.
