The South Korean local media has widely reported that the internet giant Kakao plans to deepen its involvement with cryptocurrency in the country by integrating crypto into it’s various, widely known platforms.

Kakao which the press also refers to as Cacao has become famous through its many community platforms such as Kakaotalk chat application (app), Kakaostyle mobile fashion service, Kakaomusic app, Kakaobank, Kakaopay e-wallet, Kakao T taxi app, and these are only for starters.

Kakao’s penetration into the South Korean market is broad and fast growing, especially on the subject of cryptocurrency. Towards the fall of 2017, it was learned that Kakaotalk through its inner-app Kakaostock had planned a cryptocurrency exchange to trade virtual currencies Bitcoin and ether. These developments were geared towards exploiting more than 200 million worldwide users of the app and also capturing up to 95 percent of the domestic smartphone market.

About a month later, the company made public the launch of Upbit, with more than 110 cryptocurrencies. This has since made Kakao one of the largest of a kind in South Korea.

By December 2017, it was claimed that Kakao’s cryptocurrency exchange Upbit was to be the largest crypto exchange by volume in South Korea, and one of the top three markets in the world.

News.Bitcoin.com reported a listing of more than 120 coins leveraging Kakao Talk’s massive user base. As of today, Upbit facilitates an average daily trading volume of about 5 trillion won.

A Korean online news organization, the Asian Economy, reported that the company was not giving up its crypto business model. It also stated that Kakao would introduce a digital currency payment system which is to be applied not only to its Kakao’s platforms like KakaoTalk but also to over 10,000 Kakaopay merchants.

The Huffington Post Korea quoted a Kakao official saying, that they were in a discussion to introduce a cryptographic business, that includes ICO, through subsidiaries,” and that a significant announcement will be made on March 20.

According to the Asian Economy continued, Kakao’s financial technology arm has introduced a service in support of the virtual currency settlement during the first half of the year.