The companies are set to exhibit at Messe Berlin from June 30 through July 1 as part of the second annual GITEX AI Europe conference. The event draws over 800 companies, more than 500 investors managing a combined $1 trillion in assets under management, and participants from more than 100 countries. Specific names of the Korean companies attending have not been publicly released by the ministry.

South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) is funding the delegation, consistent with its broader Digital Strategy mandate to place Korean tech firms in key global markets. The Digital Strategy specifically names Brussels as a target digital hub, a detail that underscores the ministry's broader European ambitions beyond any single event. The ministry's 2026 budget totals 23.7 trillion won, up 12.9 percent year-over-year, with 11.8 trillion won earmarked for research and development and 5.1 trillion won directed specifically toward artificial intelligence. Minister Bae Kyunghoon described the ministry's posture as results-oriented. In the ministry's 2026 budget announcement, he stated: "We will move swiftly on key projects to deliver concrete outcomes that the public can see and feel as soon as possible."

This Berlin appearance is not a standalone move. At GITEX Global 2024 in Dubai, approximately 170 Korean companies participated with backing from nine government agencies. Incheon City ran a dedicated blockchain pavilion under its Blockchain Technology Innovation Support Center, a project co-funded by MSIT. The Berlin delegation fits within the same architecture: government agencies identify target markets, organize companies into coordinated pavilions, and provide support that has typically included partial cost assistance to reduce barriers for smaller firms.

The case for European market entry is practical for Korean blockchain companies right now. South Korea enacted the Virtual Asset User Protection Act in July 2024, which introduced investor protection measures including provisions addressing exchange hot-wallet restrictions, compensation requirements for user losses, and market manipulation prohibitions, among other provisions. A first criminal conviction under the law came in February 2026, resulting in a three-year prison sentence and the recovery of approximately 7.1 billion won in illicit gains. The Capital Markets Act was amended in February 2026 to bring tokenized securities under an existing regulatory framework. Korean firms can now present themselves to European counterparts as operating under investor-protection and anti-money-laundering standards comparable to those required under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which took full effect across the bloc in 2024.

Korean firms working in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and institutional stablecoin infrastructure are among the more competitive candidates for European partnerships at this stage. Hanwha Investment and Securities CEO Byung-ho Jang noted at the firm's 2026 strategy meeting that "global financial markets are rapidly reorganizing around digital assets," with his firm targeting RWA tokenization as a core focus. The Kaia blockchain, which merged the formerly separate Klaytn and Finschia chains and is now used in KB Financial's stablecoin pilot, is a Korean-origin chain that has attracted institutional attention. KB Financial's cross-border remittance testing showed costs running 87 percent below SWIFT rates, with Vietnam as the initial corridor.

That remittance data has implications beyond Europe. South Asian and African markets with high-volume informal remittance flows represent natural candidates for the kind of infrastructure Korean firms are building. GITEX AI Europe is a European event, but the connections made there can produce relationships that extend across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and emerging market corridors where Korean tech investment has been growing.

The domestic market gives some sense of the scale behind these companies. South Korea counted 553 blockchain solution providers in 2024, with projections of 621 by 2025. The domestic blockchain market was valued at 416.2 billion won in 2024, projected to reach 471.9 billion won in 2025. The blockchain-as-a-service segment is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 49.26 percent from 2026 through 2033. On the retail side, Upbit and Bithumb together hold roughly 96 percent of the Korean won-denominated crypto market, with XRP recently surpassing Bitcoin and Ethereum in KRW trade volume as of May 2026.

An estimated $115 billion in Korean retail capital has migrated to offshore dollar-pegged stablecoins, according to a16z Crypto. That capital flight is one reason Korean companies are motivated to build global credibility and infrastructure partnerships: drawing institutional liquidity back toward Korean-built networks requires presence in markets where institutional capital is actually concentrated.

MSIT has not released an exhibitor list for the Berlin delegation. Verse Press will follow up on any partnership announcements or deal signings from the event before it closes on July 1.