South Korea's NHN KCP Partners with Ava Labs to Develop a Crypto Payment Layer-1 on Avalanche

South Korea’s NHN KCP has signed a deal with Ava Labs to develop a crypto payment blockchain on Avalanche, as the payment firm moves toward building a dedicated Layer 1 network. The initiative is aimed at creating a blockchain system optimized for merchant payments, settlement efficiency, and cross-border financial activity.

What Ava Labs will provide

Under the agreement, Ava Labs will offer deployment support through Ava Cloud. This is intended to allow NHN KCP to configure and operate its own blockchain environment for the payments use case.

The development is also described as part of broader efforts to integrate blockchain into regulated payment systems in South Korea.

Ava Labs’ live system positioning

Ava Labs’ infrastructure description emphasized operational capabilities already running on live systems, rather than conceptual frameworks. The statement referenced real chains processing real transactions and highlighted privacy controls designed to prevent external access to transaction data.

It also pointed to protocol-level KYC embedded directly into the network. The messaging framed the work as addressing institutional finance objections by demonstrating verifiable execution, including “real chains” and “real transactions.”

Settlement and integration features

The infrastructure description further highlighted atomic settlement across sovereign chains, designed to enable synchronized finality across separate networks and reduce settlement mismatches in multi-chain environments.

Encrypted positions were also mentioned, alongside a non-proprietary technical design. The stated goal is to help institutions integrate with existing financial infrastructure without adopting specialized programming languages.

NHN KCP’s Layer 1 focus on payments

NHN KCP is developing a payments-focused Layer 1 using Ava Cloud as part of the collaboration. The platform is intended to let companies deploy customized blockchain networks for specific use cases, particularly high-volume payment processing.

The design targets sub-one-second authorization speeds for transactions, supporting fast merchant settlement across digital payment channels. It also includes onchain encryption to secure transaction data during processing and to support controlled access to sensitive financial information.

The system is described as allowing configurable permissions for network participants.

Next steps and planned use cases

NHN KCP CEO Jun-seok Park said the collaboration combines payment infrastructure expertise with blockchain technology. The companies plan to validate functionality through a proof-of-concept phase.

They also indicated they will explore tokenized deposits, stablecoin settlement models, and cross-border payments, with rollout timing dependent on regulatory developments in South Korea.