One of the hottest products over the past year led by EMURGO - the official commercial arm of Cardano - to thrust Cardano’s underlying cryptocurrency ADA into the spotlight was the launching of a physical ADA Crypto Card to enable ADA holders to spend ADA in actual retail stores.
Through a partnership agreement with Metaps Plus, the largest fintech mobile in South Korea with 300,000 daily active users, EMURGO led the initiative to bring real world utility and value to ADA holders; something unprecedented in the Cardano ecosystem.
As the current stock is sold out and in the hands of the initial first adopters, EMURGO is hard at work with our partners to replenish and revamp the ADA Crypto Card with a newer and even more user friendly experience of acquiring the cards to drive utility of ADA and Cardano adoption. In the coming months, we are in the process of working to have a simple global site to process and order new ADA Crypto Cards along with giveaways and other promotional materials to pass along to our community. Helpful and insightful blog content articles on usability of the card along with an FAQ section and other Korea-related content is being discussed. While we cannot pinpoint an exact date of the rollout of the next batch of ADA Crypto Cards, we will release any new and relevant information in the coming months on our Twitter and site, so please stay tuned.
The ADA Crypto Card is accepted as payment in over 30,000+ offline merchants across South Korea in a broad array of household name brands including convenience stores GS25, emart24, coffee shops, screen baseball gaming arcades, bbq restaurants, dessert cafes, and more.
Launched to a rousing success with an initial batch of hundreds of cards that have all sold out, curious onlookers and other users holding the card might be wondering where to use the ADA Crypto Card in South Korea. At the end of this article, we will add some final tips and other awesome & exciting places to use your ADA Crypto Card in Korea.
Now, let’s take a look at the top 5 places to use your ADA Crypto Card in South Korea:
emart24 (이마트24)
Founded by one of South Korea’s largest multinational conglomerates, Shinsegae Group, emart24 is a ubiquitous convenience store found all across South Korea. While relatively newer in establishment compared to the other leading convenience store brands in South Korea, several emart24 convenience stores are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with almost everything one can imagine. It positions itself as a slightly more upscale version of a convenience store.
ADA Crypto Card holders can spend their ADA on anything from ready-to-eat meals, lunchboxes, beverages, to even household items such as electronics, cleaning goods, and more.
As of 2018, there were more than 2,750 physical branches located throughout South Korea in urban and suburban locales with more locations opening due to rapid expansion.
GS25
GS25 is another one of South Korea’s leading household convenience store brands located throughout the country and is a brand under GS Retail which is an affiliate of the larger GS Company.
GS is one of the top 10 largest business groups in South Korea by assets under holdings.
