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[ITU-T Adopts High-Speed Blockchain Messaging Technology “F.751.28” as an International Standard, Developed by a POSTECH-Led Korean Research Consortium]

 A blockchain technology led by a research team from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), headed by Professor Hwangjun Song and Professor Chanik Park, with participation from multiple domestic research teams, including Professor Seongho Jeong’s team at the Department of Information and Communication Engineering at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), has been officially approved as an international standard by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T). The standard, designated F.751.28, received final approval on December 14 (local time), marking a significant achievement in which Korean researchers established a global reference framework for blockchain services worldwide.

 The standardization outcome is a key result of a national R&D project titled ‘Core Technologies for Hybrid P2P Network-based Blockchain services’, conducted as part of the ‘Blockchain Technology Development Program for the Data Economy’ supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP).

The five-year collaborative research project, launched in 2021, was led by POSTECH (Professors Hwangjun Song and Chanik Park) and involved six universities—Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Professor Seong Ho Jeong), Incheon National University (Professor Giseok Park), Handong Global University (Professor Yunmin Go), Jeonbuk National University (Professor Hyunmin Noh), and Keimyung University (Professor Sejin Park)—as well as two companies, BFLabs and CPLABS.

 The approved standard, F.751.28, specifies a framework for fast message delivery for distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based services. It is designed to process messages required for inter-node consensus and block propagation in blockchain networks more rapidly and reliably than existing methods. Simply put, it defines a set of transmission rules that enable blockchain systems to exchange information more efficiently.

 In blockchain systems, multiple computers must simultaneously verify and share transaction data. When this process is delayed, overall service performance deteriorates. The newly standardized technology reduces message delivery latency through technical elements such as network monitoring and enhanced consensus mechanisms, thereby significantly improving transaction processing speed (TPS), a long-standing limitation of blockchain technology. As a result, it is regarded as a foundational technology with immediate applicability across various industries, including finance, logistics, and national authentication systems.

 The impact of international standard adoption is substantial. Once standardized, the technology effectively becomes a default specification for companies and institutions worldwide when developing related services. This signifies that Korean technology has secured a leading position in the global blockchain infrastructure landscape. Professor Seong Ho Jeong of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies played a key role in finalizing the standardization process by leading technical consensus discussions at the ITU-T Study Group 21 (SG21) meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland, last October.

 Professor Hwangjun Song of POSTECH, who served as the principal investigator, stated, “The adoption of this ITU international standard officially recognizes that our core technology can lead blockchain networking technologies worldwide.” He added, “This marks an important milestone in addressing real-time data processing challenges, which have been one of the biggest obstacles in the blockchain industry.” He further noted, “Going forward, we will continue to expand international leadership in domestic technologies and accelerate the commercialization of distributed ledger technology (DLT) services in 5G and 6G environments.”