Grandmaster Lee Sedol to launch blockchain version of Go board game

South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol became famous for losing to Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence in a match playing the ancient Chinese board game. And now, Sedol is launching a blockchain-based Go game project, dubbed GoBlock, in collaboration with Korean blockchain company The Blockchain Inc.

GoBlock will operate a global Go game professional league with Go esports players based in South Korea, Japan, and greater China at the outset.

In addition, Lee is also planning to create a balanced reward system so that all participants — such as professional Go game players, league supporters, viewers, and advertisers — can reap benefits, the company said. GoBlock will operate on blockchain, a secure and transparent decentralized ledger, in order to guarantee fairness in the competition.

In addition, GoBlock will also form amateur leagues, provide training for Go gamers, and commercialize Go game match records. To achieve this, GoBlock will issue tokens to support leagues, game players, and match records.

Based on this framework, GoBlock will create a project that leverages transparency and rationale token economy using Ethereum and blockchain protocols for its online service platform.

“Creation of a decentralized Go game ecosystem is one of the project’s key missions,” Sedol said in a statement. “I was drawn to the blockchain technology due to decentralization and transparency features. If blockchain technology and the token economy are applied to Go game, it will be able to expand the game’s ecosystem and bring about unforeseen changes to the game’s ecosystem.”