Sooho.io, the South Korea-headquartered smart contract auditing firm, announced on Monday a strategic partnership with Lambda256, a subsidiary of Dunamu, operator of South Korea crypto exchange Upbit. The partnership will enable Sooho.io to expand its service and develop a bridge layer for Web 3.0 reminiscent of a SWIFT service on top of Lambda256’s “The Balance” mainnet unveiled on Monday.

The announcement signals a major expansion for not only Sooho.io, but also marks a shift in the DeFi ecosystem by unifying South Korea’s crypto market. Plagued by a fragmented market of mainnets and DeFi products disassociated from one another, Sooho.io’s bridge layer introduces the much-needed interoperability between Korean protocols. It also enables Korean users to easily interact between Korea’s leading cryptocurrencies with global cryptocurrencies.

The bridge, along with a decentralized exchange (DEX), will both be developed by Sooho.io on top of Lambda256’s mainnet, called The Balance. The Balance was launched for a number of partners to develop various types of decentralized apps (dApps) to build the ecosystem, involving projects such as IPFS, play-to-earn, oracles, DEXs, NFTs, wallets, and stablecoins.

In December 2021, Lambda256 raised around $80M from HYBE, YG entertainment, and SBI investment, and The Balance is the latest among a comprehensive portfolio of blockchain solutions that addresses the challenges of wider blockchain adoption.

“We’re excited that Sooho.io is breaking ground with a bridge layer that will transform the landscape of Korea’s crypto industry with the first gateway that connects this local ecosystem with the rest of the world. To support our partners developing innovative services on The Balance, we’re committed to building a more secure and reliable infrastructure for the crypto space in Korea,” said Evan Park, COO of Lambda256.

Sooho’s development of the bridge enables virtual assets on multiple public blockchains to be moved and exchanged between them, working as a frictionless financial layer for Web 3.0.

In addition to the bridge layer, Sooho.io’s products include Odin and Kleva. Designed to thoroughly analyze security vulnerabilities, ODIN significantly cuts down the time it takes to fully audit a smart contract through an automated algorithm discovering vulnerabilities and human errors that would otherwise subject a protocol to unlawful hacking incidents. Kleva is the firm’s leveraged yield farming DeFi product with $500 millionin total locked value, which fuels the liquidity needed to facilitate the transactions occurring within both Sooho.io’s bridge and DEX.

“It is a great pleasure to be partnering up with Lambda256 to develop Korea’s first bridge on The Balance. As the go-to smart contract auditing service trusted by most Fortune 500s throughout Korea, we’re excited about how Sooho.io’s lasting relationships with Korea’s industry leaders in the crypto ecosystem. We are uniquely positioned to not only bring together the fragmented Korean crypto industry but connect it to the rest of the world. In turn, we’re excited about the potential for this partnership to boost wider blockchain adoption for mainstream companies, and their end customers,” said Jisu Park, CEO and Founder of Sooho.io.

Sooho.io has recently announced that it has raised $4.5 million in funding to date from Consensys and WeMade Tree.

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