One Is a Build. Many Is an Architecture Problem.
Ethereum Korea One: Genesis · Day 1 · 2026-09-28 · 12:21 · In Korean
How long can building systems one chain and one use case at a time keep working? At Ethereum Korea One: Genesis, Hyung Yeon Lee, CEO of Altus, proposes "integrated design" from a financial institution's perspective.
Speakers
- Hyung Yeon Lee, CEO, Altus
About this session
In a day dominated by discussion of public infrastructure, this keynote looks at how financial institutions should view public and private blockchain infrastructure. Built around the question "separate builds or integrated design?", it asks why a more diverse digital asset landscape is not something an individual institution can choose to opt out of, and how to bring internal controls together into one.
Key takeaways
- Lee stressed that many financial institutions are heading toward "separate builds," each covering one use case in one environment such as Avalanche, Ethereum, or Solana, and that they need to think now about the opposite approach, "integrated design."
- Asset classes are growing, from CBDC, deposit tokens, and stablecoins to STO and RWA, and issuers, distribution channels, technologies, and national regulations are diversifying too. Just as Netflix broke down the borders of content, Lee sees blockchain moving toward breaking down the borders of finance.
- Bolting systems on as add-ons every time a new business appears fragments internal systems. Because regulation changes every year, Lee said institutions need a design where only a module has to be modified when rules change.
- A UK-based financial firm that Altus advises uses different wallets, such as Fireblocks, Copper, and BitGo, and different internal control policies at each branch, so headquarters cannot manage risk holistically. For Korean institutions, Lee said "the golden window hasn't closed yet" to design with integration as the baseline.
- When budgets are allocated business by business, an integrated system that spans all businesses is never allocated to any of them. Lee urged leadership to give working-level teams the opportunity and budget for an integrated system. Lee added that this is a bottleneck BCG, McKinsey, Deloitte, the BIS, and the IMF all point to.
- As a solution, Lee introduced Foundry, Altus's integrated internal control framework for digital assets. It treats each business as an application and builds internal controls as a separate underlying layer, under the principles of authority-based boundaries, securing substantive control, and separation of procedures and authority.
Chapters
- Opening: the keyword is "integrated design"
- Separate builds or integrated design?
- Growing diversity of digital assets
- Netflix and borderless finance
- Add-ons, fragmentation, and yearly regulatory change
- A UK financial firm: different wallets at every branch
- The blind spot in budget allocation
- The bottleneck global institutions point to
- Introducing Altus Foundry
- Summary of the talk