IOTA Expands Korea Presence at World Crypto Forum During Lunar New Year

• IOTA was represented at the World Crypto Forum in South Korea last week where founder Dominik Schiener took to the stage and conducted interviews.
• Tier 1 Korean financial institutions got a private introduction to the TWIN global digital trade infrastructure on the sidelines.

Last week, the crypto industry gathered in the city of Seoul in South Korea to discuss how to bridge digital assets to mainstream finance at the World Crypto Forum. IOTA was one of the projects represented at the event, with founder Dominik Schiener leading a team from the IOTA Foundation. The inaugural event, held on Feb. 11 and 12 brought together thousands of attendees from across Asia and beyond, with speakers including WLFI’s Eric Trump, a16z crypto COO Anthony Albanese, Injective’s Andrew Kang and LayerZero’s Alex Lim. Schiener also took to the stage on the second day of the event to discuss how IOTA bridges the trillion dollar gap with on-chain global trade. The session was moderated by Kim Jina, the network’s head of ecosystem.

설날 (Korean New Year week) starts today 🇰🇷🎉. 새해 복 많이 받으세요! Coming off a strong weekend in Seoul, we were on the ground at World Crypto Forum connecting with leading Korean institutions and sharing how @TWINGlobalOrg can unlock real-world adoption on IOTA⤵️ pic.twitter.com/urzDGL0IM8

— IOTA (@iota) February 16, 2026

Schiener commended the event, the attendees and the organizers, adding that there was “such a positive energy there, with deep support from the Blue House and large enterprises and financial institutions committed to building on crypto.” IOTA Pitches TWIN as the Ultimate Solution for Global Trade In his session, Schiener told the attendees:

IOTA is building a kind of highway, and by utilizing blockchain, you can verify the source and authenticity of data, which can greatly benefit cross-border business.

The main product he discussed was TWIN. As CNF reported earlier this month, TWIN went live on UK borders in a pilot project through a partnership with Teesside University. Days earlier, the project had released Version 1.0 which standardized data exchange on open protocols, boosting transparency and data sovereignty. To illustrate the efficiency that blockchain can unlock, Schiener gave the example of a mining company in Rwanda that has been paying 20% interest on financing from local banks. Now, through TWIN, it tokenizes warehouse receipts and ownership, enabling the company to access instant funding in the form of stablecoins, backed by real-world assets. He added:

In Kenya, we’ve also completed an experiment connecting 34 government systems with IOTA to secure and verify data. If everything—trade documents, invoices, sales—is tokenized, trust will increase and trade barriers will disappear.

On the sidelines, the IOTA Foundation organized a private side-event with Tier 1 Korean financial institutions where it offered them a deeper look into TWIN and how it’s changing global trade. “We have a deep commitment to Korea and will move forward to connect the country onchain and bring forth a new wave of crypto adoption and acceptance,” Schiener added. IOTA trades at $0.0687, dropping 3.4% in the past day.