Empowering Global Governments: The Future of Crypto Infrastructure with Claire Ma | KBW2025

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Hello everyone. Welcome to sign protocol. So, what are we for the Korean community? We are probably just people wearing the orange neon vest and we are shouting all the time. We have the karaoke room downstairs.

So, if you're into singing, go swing by and sing a song. we have some special prizes for you. But today in my speech, I want to also introduce to you what S is building on in our next direction. Uh since we have already launched the token. So what what is S?

Um S is a group of team based in Hong Kong, New York and Singapore. And since 2021, we have raised more than $40 million from top investors including Altos Venture based here in Korea, Sequoia Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Easy Labs, previously Binance Labs, Circle and more. Uh this year in April, we have launched our signed token SIGN token on a top exchanges including Binance, Upit, Bit Thumb, Bybit Bit, BGET and many more. So yeah, uh SIGN sign token we are we are already launched. And today I'm really happy to introduce SIGN to you again but now it stands for sovereign infrastructure for global nations.

This is our next direction and focus post TGE. So we are going to provide the most practical and useful infrastructure for the governments and it's a happy coincident that it spells as sign sig. Why we are doing this? Um we see that if you guys I don't know if you guys are crypton native or how long have you been in the space but we see these alerts if you have downloaded Binance if you have downloaded exchanges there assets launching every day right we have so many cutting edge tech we know zero knowledge proof at stationation but some of us maybe we don't know what that is we have DeFi all these onchain infrastructure build out we have the fastest blockchain we're even making them faster faster but we feel like there are more and more asset launching every day but we are not expanding our circle as quickly as we are launching asset which I think we should definitely break out of our circle and to reach out more to traditional world uh because we see that it's the same from a from the outside we see uh traditional institution we see Robin Hood launching a chain right and governments are also taking proactive steps to embrace blockchain so so they are taking a step from both the asset side and from the digital identity side we see Korea here we are moving to regulate Korean womb based stable coin we So many panels today talking about stablecoin. It wasn't like that like that last year and a year before that and we see Pakistan doing uh with great population doing CBDC pilot uh in a digital Pakistan vision and we also see aside from asset uh Bhutan for example they're launching an onchain identity system which allows users to use zero knowledge proof to prove identity and verify identity on chain.

So we see that governments uh to them blockchain is no longer a concept but they are taking actions to adopt that to actually use the blockchain technology that we have been building for years. That's why we are building this that's why we are building for the sovereign infrastructure and really happily we are going to announce it later today after my after my speak uh our white paper we have been working on it for a while. We have some actual government clients that we are talking to and uh because we want to provide the most practical tools for them that they're actually going to use. Uh we have been improving our white paper for a while. We are going to announce it later today from our Twitter account.

So follow us on ESA or um stay tuned. This is a very technical white paper. So you can see all of the specific things we are providing for the government. Okay. And in this speak I'm going to cover what exactly we are building for the government and this uh what they are interested in.

We have three core pillars. So in the foundation we have the sovereign blockchain infrastructure. So when we talk to uh government representatives imagine what's the first thing they say to us. We want to build a chain. That's what they say to us.

They don't know what they want to build on the chain but they want a chain. And um and then after some conversation we know that okay they want to launch stable coin. They want to launch asset on a chain. So as a foundation us sign we build them the sovereign blockchain infrastructure so to make that possible and after the chain is built now we can put asset on it now we can launch stable coin on it and then imagine after we have onboard all of the asset onto the chain what's next people are going to want to build a credit trial people are going to want to move information on onto the chain and that's what we are providing we have the tech stack to build a chain we have the tech stack to distribute asset and then we have sign protocol to bring the offchain data on chain. Okay, now let's dive deeper into the chain part.

So, uh really interesting discussion. So, I'm really happy to share this because when we were having an actual uh conversation with the governments, it's no different than just having a conversation with the crypto clients that we are trying to understand what they need. So, the government were saying, "Oh, we want digital cash. We want CBDC." Now that uh probably a lot of people don't aware that in many countries a lot of people are underbanked that they don't have access to the uh to the banking system.

However, with the CBDC central bank digital currency pilot now people with the mobile app um they have the banking app they can just verify their identity through the KYC and they will get access to CBDC which is programmable cash digital cash. So here what government want is instant uh efficient transfer and payouts and they want they will need the private transaction as well. That's why what we are providing is a private chain where central bank will be the master of the chain and commercial bank will be the node operators who will be validating transactions and onboarding these residents to CBDC. That's the one part that governments typically need. The other part when governments are more proactive, they are more crypto friendly, they want to launch their own stable coin, they want to provide DeFi onchain financing to their residents.

That's when we will present the public layer too. I think some of you might think why don't they just use a public chain like Ethereum technically? Yes. But when we are talking to them, they they they want their own stuff. They want to they probably don't want to pay the gas fee in ETH, but they want they still want some customizable parameters over the chain.

I still want some sort of control. So I think the layer two here is really suitable for the sovereign chain where you still have the security of the public chain but you can do some uh customizable control for the government such as access control and they can do a lot of stuff on this chain. They can launch the national stable coin. uh they can do identity verification just like how Bhutan does it and they can also help resident bring the real world asset from offchain to onchain and sign will make it possible with uh some of the governments they want both the private chain and the public chain um because imagine this so after you onboard everybody from um the traditional banking system to CBDC we also provide the text to build a bridge between them so let's say I'm a citizen and I I got access access to CBDC. Now I want to play with DeFi.

I want to interact with different smart contract. I can bridge my coin to the national stable coin on the public layer too and get exposed to all of these uh smart contract on chain. We imagine that the future of asset standard will be built in crypto. This is something we believe in and in the future uh with our sovereign blockchain infrastructure uh all of the countries we think will have their own sovereign blockchain in the future. And imagine when all of the assets are built on chain, we will have the global asset exchange happening on chain where all of the asset will be in crypto format.

Now we have the asset on chain, we have built out the chain. What's next? The dispersement, the distribution of the asset. We have so many examples already existing nowadays that governments are doing pension distributions to elderlys, welfare programs like subsidies for low-income family and most importantly UBI universal basic income universal basic income for each of uh every residents. Okay.

And that's what we can provide. So fundamentally um we if we think about asset distribution right uh with science in uh sovereign infrastructure we will provide a distribution smart contract where governments they can deposit token into the smart contract and we can use code uh to distribute it to all of the recipients. So this will not just limit within the web3 industry but we can onboard all of the citizens. They can open their digital app. The government will be issuing um tokens to them, asset to them u maybe in a form of stable coin and they can claim it through the smart contract.

So in this way the payouts are instant. Um nowadays I know that for welfare programs to carry out it typically takes days um or weeks for the residents to actually get the token. So we we didn't just build it overnight. Uh we have this product called token table that have been existing in the web3 world for years. Uh we have distributed more than $2 billion worth of tokens to all of the cryptonative community.

If you all are a crypto native, if you are uh claimed airdrop before, even though you probably don't know token table, you probably have interacted with token table smart contract because we have some key partners like B&B chain, OKX wallet, top players like Kaido to distribute tokens to yappers, leaderboard, uh out of communities claim airdrop from project through token table smart contract. If we can distribute tokens to cryptonative crowds, the same smart contract can be used in the sovereign uh infrastructure scenario where the government no longer the crypton native project will be the token issuing party. They will be depositing token to the smart contract. The same smart contract that we use to distribute airdrops to the community. But this time the crowd will be millions uh bigger than a crypto community.

Okay, I'll give a more practical example now. So imagine the Korean government want to uh distribute $10 worth of stable coin to each of the Korean residents. How can that be possible? Uh through the sign sovereign infrastructure. We all know the onchain claiming part can be done through the token table, the smart contract.

But how can I prove that I'm actually a Korean resident? That comes in the sign protocol attestation service. So I have my Oh, I don't know. Uh I have my New York City driver's license here. You see that I'm holding the ID right?

This is offchain completely offchain. I got that issued from a from a DMV uh a ethica I think but um okay this identity is offchain through sign protocol I can bring this I can attest this onchain and then I'll have a onchain record. uh if the I'm holding a Korean passport the same thing will happen and I'll have an onchain attestation saying that this person is verified Korean and then I will have grant access to interact with a smart contract let's say token table in this case to be able to claim the 10 US dollar worth of stable coin and this can all be realized through science sovereign infrastructure so first we bring offchain data to onchain now you have the onchain record you can interact with the onchain smart contract to get the asset This is the sign protocol interface. Okay. But um except from government distributing asset to citizens after we imagine that in the future all of the asset will be carried out in a crypto format.

Right. And uh out of the private company will want a piece of that. They want to distribute credit scores. They want to distribute maybe assets to their loyal customers. And same logic applies here.

In this case identity can be any type of offchain data. It can be my past record. if I have flight with the airline before um and then I can have that record prove that on a sovereign layer 2 blockchain and get access to any type of service. So let's say I have uh I'm a credit card company I want to issue credit to this person who I fly frequently with the airline company. I can do that through the sign protocol and token table stack.

Okay, coming back now I talked about the sovereign blockchain infrastructure. The public layer 2 which opens the global liquidity and the private chain which uh holds the domestic payout instantly and efficiently and on top of the chain we distribute asset we help government issue asset onchain and we also bring the offchain data onchain so that we have the credit trial we have the asset dispersement and then we have the foundation as a blockchain. Okay, we can see that sign is taking a top-down strategy now post TGE. We are not just happy with all of the crypton native community. We want to expand even more.

So we are doing a government initiatives. We're talking to the government representatives. We are presenting them with the tech. Don't worry about it. We'll build it for you.

As long as they they think they that's practical and they want to carry that out, then that's good. Then government will will build the digital roads for the citizens and then that leads to the bottom up adoption for all of the citizens. Imagine each one of them wants to get the welfare distribution. The UBI is frequently the UBI is a regular claiming process and all of them will be interacting with the science sovereign blockchain and the token table smart contract and we can onboard the next millions of user. We are confident that S will provide service to more than 300 million people worldwide.

Given the current clients that we're in conversation with and potential clients that we will have conversation with, we believe that in the future all of the asset will be in a crypto format. And this is real. This is not just a conceptual stage. We have we will publish the white paper today. So you can see the tech stack.

But we have real clients and we want to build the most practical solutions for them. Okay, let's bring the stage back to Korea. Now that sign is in Korea, you know, we are not just people singing songs in the karaoke room, but we love singing. Now, now let's welcome our sign intern community and our lovely community to talk to you more about the Korean blockchain week. Hey, hey, hey.

WELCOME TO OUR ORANGE DYNASTY. AS YOU GUYS HAVE HEARD, what we do is not just add to schema infrastructure protocol and what SHE SAID BECAUSE WE ARE B2G. SO THAT MEANS THAT we can be ourselves. We can have fun. We can be awesome.

So if you're here, this is a sign to have fun with us at our karaoke booth and everywhere else. SO TODAY, IF YOU FOLLOW US soon to the sign karaoke room, we're going to be giving a very special airdrop, if you know what I mean. If you like airdrops, if you like special things, come to us. And we also have a scavenger hunt where we have a lot of billboards across the city with great, great, great rewards like sign tokens and the orange iPhone. All right.

So, once again, this does not discredit all the serious stuff that Clear said, but it's also possible for a VC coin to have a mimetic energy and for all of us to enjoy and have fun together. ALL RIGHT, KBW. THANK YOU.