Dunamu, the parent company behind South Korean's largest crypto exchange Upbit, launches its Ethereum Layer 2 chain named Giwa on testnet. On Tuesday, at Upbit D Conference (UDC) 2025, Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok said in his speech that Giwa will be a blockchain providing utility for the financial sector, and it will support a local currency stablecoin, according to a report from local news outlet Bloomingbit. Upbit quietly released an enigmatic “Giwa” website with a live countdown, stirring up a lot of attention, but remained extremely tight-lipped about revealing additional details of Giwa.

Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, has launched the testnet of its new Ethereum Layer 2 network Giwa at the Upbit D Conference (UDC) 2025. Giwa, which stands for Global Infrastructure for Web3 Access, is built on Optimism’s OP Stack, giving it full EVM compatibility so developers can deploy existing Ethereum smart contracts and use familiar tools while benefiting from lower fees and faster confirmation times. The chain targets roughly one‑second block times and near‑real‑time transactions, with a public testnet and explorer already processing millions of blocks, indicating that development and testing have been underway for several weeks. Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung‑seok framed Giwa as infrastructure aimed squarely at the financial sector, emphasizing that the network is intended to provide “tangible utility” for finance rather than purely speculative use cases. A key part of this strategy is planned support for a Korean won–denominated stablecoin, positioned to align with ongoing South Korean policy discussions around local‑currency stablecoins and digital asset market development. The project marks a strategic shift for Dunamu from being primarily an exchange operator to also becoming a core blockchain infrastructure provider, and it fits into a broader regional trend of large regulated platforms building their own Layer 2 networks to control user experience, fees, and compliance while still settling on Ethereum for security. Before the formal announcement, Upbit quietly published a teaser “Giwa” website with a countdown, which attracted local attention but provided almost no technical or token‑economic details. With the testnet now live and third‑party infrastructure providers beginning to add support, Giwa is entering a competitive Layer 2 landscape dominated by other OP Stack–based networks, but with a potential differentiator in its explicit integration with Korea’s domestic financial ecosystem and a won‑pegged stablecoin focus.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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