Stablecoins And Blockchain In South Korea Could Power Plastic Surgeries

The blockchain news today show that there are many South Korean companies which are looking to stablecoins and blockchain as technology that would boost the number of people coming into the country to undergo cosmetic surgical procedures.

What you probably don’t know is that the plastic surgery industry in South Korea is worth an estimated $5 billion a year. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, there had been a steady growth in foreign visits for “medical tourism” purposes which translates to cosmetic surgery.

The blockchain business consultant Lee Jong-Cheol recently advised that cosmetic surgery firms in South Korea are open to stablecoins and blockchain technology as ways to attract people coming to the country:

“Customers want to pay in crypto – particularly those coming from China. They want to pay in crypto for the entire package, hotels, food and the treatment. But as crypto-business is hard to do here, with a lack of regulatory framework, blockchain-powered payments and stablecoins that have easy crypto gateways could provide a solution,” he noted in the crypto news.

According to one report in the Korea Biomedical Review, it was found that plastic surgery clinics said they suffered “a 70% reduction of patient visits after January this year” and many of the South Korean companies operating in the industry closed their doors to domestic patients and overseas nationals.

Stablecoins and blockchain are looking to change all of this. In fact, a joint public-private consortium within the BNK Busan Bank is set to construct a blockchain powered medical tourism platform in the second largest city in the country.

Kyongbuk Ilbo also came with reports that companies in Daegu (fourth largest city in South Korea and a big medical industry hub) want to follow suit. The idea of using “legal cryptocurrencies” is floating and stablecoins pegged 1:1 to the Korean won could benefit from this. The would connect “more than 1,400” players in the medical industry with visitors that are keen to pay for medical processes, other costs and after-care using digital tokens instead of cross-border fiat to fiat transactions.

In May this year, we could see another South Korean crypto-powered medical tourism being launched, following the trend of many Seoul-based plastic surgeons which have been accepting Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies for a couple of years now.