South Korean tourist destination Jeju Island will harness ICONLOOP’s Decentralized Identity (DID) blockchain infrastructure for contract tracing purposes to safeguard the wellness of the area’s 15 million yearly visitors, according to an announcement. ICONLOOP said an agreement was inked between the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province and the company.
Jeju Self-Governing Province Director of Health and Welfare Tae-bong Lim said in the announcement, “Through this new infectious disease prevention system, Jeju Island will be able to be reborn as a safe and representative tourist destination in Korea.”
With the technology, tourists will check into companies and tourist destinations on the island through an app.
The information will remain confidential “unless a COVID-19 case is discovered,” according to the announcement.
ICONLOOP’s technology is harnessed in the healthcare, government and finance areas, among others. The Seoul-based company has notched more than $15 million in funding from a number of entities and has roughly 140 staffers. Jeju Island, for its part, is the biggest island in the country and has roughly 700,000 residents.
In other news, Tahini’s restaurant chain says that it has opted to move its cash reserves into digital currency, according to a series of tweets.
“We just converted our entire cash reserves that were originally used as savings into #Bitcoin,” according to one of the tweets from the company.
The author of the thread said that the government assistance programs in the country made it difficult to have workers return. While the restaurant’s cash reserves increased and business was on the rise once more, the author said that “cash didn’t have the same appeal” and the restaurant was worried about currency devaluation.
The company said it would keep moving its cash reserves to bitcoin over the years to come and possibly in perpetuity if it doesn’t have a “need for the fiat,” according to another tweet.
Tahini’s began in the city of London in the Canadian province of Ontario, according to one of the tweets.
