Juyoung Lim

Juyoung Lim (Korean: 임주영; also romanized as Lim Ju Young or Im Juyoung) is a South Korean business executive who serves as the general leader, or Head of Business (총괄 리더), of AhnLab Blockchain Company (ABC), the blockchain-focused subsidiary of the South Korean cybersecurity firm AhnLab.^[1]​^[2] Lim joined AhnLab in 2007 and moved into the leadership of its blockchain business in 2022, overseeing the company's Web3 wallet product ABC Wallet and, later, its infrastructure for blockchain-based games and AI-driven on-chain economies.^[2]​^[3]​

Career

AhnLab

Lim began working at AhnLab in 2007, where the early part of the career centered on consumer-facing security software. At AhnLab, Lim helped plan the free antivirus product V3 Lite and other business-to-consumer (B2C) security products, planned software-as-a-service (SaaS) style security offerings, and worked on open innovation and new-business strategy.^[2] This background in both consumer product planning and security strategy positioned Lim to lead AhnLab's move into blockchain.

AhnLab's entry into blockchain grew out of a mid

• to long-term corporate strategy the company launched in 2019 called "N.E.X.T 무브안랩 4.0." According to Lim, it was on the basis of that strategy that AhnLab prepared its blockchain technology research and market entry.^[2] AhnLab established AhnLab Blockchain Company as a dedicated subsidiary in 2022, the same year Lim assumed the general-leader role there.^[3]​^[2]​

Leadership at AhnLab Blockchain Company

As Head of Business, Lim leads a company that AhnLab describes as building wallet-centered infrastructure that draws on the parent firm's security technology so that anyone can use Web3 services safely and conveniently.^[3] The subsidiary is headquartered in South Korea and provides digital asset payment services; as of mid-2026 the company reported a staff of roughly 10 to 20 employees.^[4]​

ABC Wallet

The company's central product under Lim's leadership is ABC Wallet, a non-custodial (self-custody) cryptocurrency wallet in which users directly control their own private keys rather than entrusting them to a third party. AhnLab Blockchain Company launched the mobile version of ABC Wallet in early 2023.^[2] The company states that ABC Wallet applies AhnLab's security technology and that, although it is a self-custody wallet, it includes measures that reduce the burden of key management that typically makes such wallets difficult to use. Lim has said, "ABC 월렛은 셀프 커스터디 지갑이지만 키 관리에 대한 사용자 부담을 대폭 낮췄다" ("ABC Wallet is a self-custody wallet, but it has greatly lowered the user's burden of key management").^[2] Lim has framed the wallet as the starting point for protecting user assets and privacy, and has argued that AhnLab's accumulated trust and long security experience give the company an advantage in delivering Web3 services and make it a suitable partner for Web2.0 companies moving into Web3.^[2]​

Wallet-as-a-Service and Game Infrastructure

Under Lim, the company has developed a wallet-as-a-service (WaaS) offering aimed at blockchain game developers, built around a strategy of hiding Web3 technology from end users. In this model a wallet is created automatically at sign-up through a normal login rather than through complex mnemonic (seed phrase) backups, ABC pays gas fees on behalf of users, and players can access games without separate installations or blockchain knowledge; rewards or items earned in-game are stored as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the automatically created wallet.^[3] The company states that its solution lets foreign users pay easily using stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, and provides development tools and application programming interfaces (APIs) under a free license so developers can integrate blockchain features. It also offers Discord integration for NFT-based fandom authentication and community-management tools intended to help game companies build their own ecosystems.^[3]​

To broaden this offering, AhnLab Blockchain Company acquired Kakao's cryptocurrency wallet service Klip (클립). The company states that the acquisition enables it to offer integrated functions including multi-chain support for interoperability with various Web3 services, NFT minting and trading, point and reward features, and gas-fee payment on behalf of users.^[3] The company has also completed registration acceptance (신고수리) as a virtual asset service provider (VASP) in South Korea, and on that basis provides stablecoin wallet infrastructure and linked custody (수탁) business.^[5]​

Talks and Conferences

Lim has become a recurring speaker at South Korean blockchain-gaming conferences, where the message has consistently centered on reducing friction for ordinary players and, more recently, on the role of AI agents in on-chain economies.^[3]​^[6]​^[5]​

On June 12, 2025, Lim spoke at the 4th Korea NFT/Blockchain Game Conference (제4회 대한민국 NFT/블록체인 게임 컨퍼런스) and presented strategies for popularizing Web3 games. Lim argued that Web3 games have far more complex onboarding than ordinary games — citing wallet creation, mnemonic backup, and gas-fee payment as unfamiliar procedures that drive users away — and said, "게임 이용자들은 단지 게임을 즐기고 싶을 뿐입니다. 지갑 설치 같은 복잡한 과정은 곧장 이탈로 이어집니다" ("Game users just want to enjoy the game. Complicated processes such as installing a wallet lead directly to churn").^[3] Lim added that "기술보다 중요한 건 사용자의 경험이며, 기술은 그 배경으로 작동해야 한다" ("what matters more than technology is the user's experience, and technology should operate in the background"), and said the success of blockchain games ultimately depends on the fun of the content, with ABC supplying the underlying blockchain technology and infrastructure so game companies can focus on quality.^[3]​

On-Chain Economies and AI Agents

On June 23, 2026, Lim delivered a lecture at the 5th Korea Blockchain Web3 Game Conference (제5회 대한민국 블록체인 웹3 게임 컨퍼런스), held at the international conference hall of the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation in Pangyo, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, with the event announced by the Korea Game Media Association (한국게임미디어협회, chaired by Lee Taek-soo). The talk, a return engagement following a presentation at the previous year's conference, was titled "게임에서 현실로 이어지는 가치의 순환: 진짜 온체인 경제의 시작" ("The Value Loop from Games to Reality: The Beginning of a True On-Chain Economy").^[5]​^[4]​

In the lecture Lim argued that in future virtual economies most transactions will be executed by AI agents that autonomously judge and act rather than by people, making AI agents the primary economic actors. Lim said stablecoins will emerge as an essential payment layer for on-chain economies, that on-chain wallets will serve as financial infrastructure, and that smart contracts will handle autonomous settlement.^[6] Contrasting traditional games with games built on multi-party computation (MPC), Lim distinguished two aspects — the production of goods and business-to-business (B2B) transactions — describing how, in MPC-based agent games, agents would autonomously analyze market demand and prices to mine raw materials and craft items, with assets stored inside MPC-specific independent on-chain wallets and represented as stablecoins or NFTs. Lim said contract-based settlement between agents and account-abstraction-based subscriptions would become possible if AI agents operated beyond existing marketplaces.^[6]​

As an illustrative case Lim cited a 2023 proof-of-concept experiment conducted by Stanford University and Google, saying it demonstrated autonomous trade by AI communities using virtual wallets, and pointed to subsequent on-chain finance agent cases in which AI alone borrowed millions of dollars. Lim named projects including "x402" and "올라스" (Olas) as following that experiment, and predicted the emergence of AI financial-secretary services that would let players manage funds and items strategically — for example, selling items at peak prices or buying raw materials at low prices — with Web3 decentralized finance (DeFi) providing optimal routing for trades and secure delegation through refined session keys.^[6]​

Much of the lecture addressed the security and governance risks of such economies. Lim proposed not handing full private keys to AI but granting only signing authority, using ABC's MPC technology to split a key into three shares — one held by the AI agent, one by the player, and one by a custodian institution that manages both a key and policy.^[6] Lim argued that because the AI would not hold a complete key, an external attack would not result in key exfiltration, saying "AI가 온전한 키를 가진 게 아니라는 점에서 외부 공격이 있어도 키가 유출되는 일은 없을 것," and that a human owner could intervene to halt payments or change policy at any time.^[6] Warning of threats such as asset theft and agent-specific prompt-injection attacks, Lim recommended policy-based governance that enforces rules like loan limits, allowed addresses, and spending caps requiring simultaneous approval among human, AI agent, and custodian, together with real-time Know Your Transaction (KYT) verification. Lim said gathering global threat information quickly and protecting consumers is the duty of custodial institutions, adding, "지갑에서 자산을 관리하는 사용자에게 주의사항을 언급하더라도 자산이 탈취됐을 때 결국 플랫폼 책임으로 돌아온다" ("even if warnings are given to users who manage their own assets, when assets are stolen the responsibility ultimately returns to the platform").^[6] Lim also urged that countries including South Korea protect users within legal frameworks, with particular attention to anti-money-laundering (AML) and licensing risks facing global game companies.^[6]​^[5]​

In accompanying analysis Lim framed the overall vision as a "value loop," saying "결국 가치 순환 자체는 하나의 구조로 작동한다" ("in the end, the circulation of value itself operates as a single structure") and predicting the arrival of a real Web3 economy in which in-game achievements circulate smoothly into the real physical economy across borders.^[6]​^[5] The presentations were tied to ABC's roadmap for a Web3 ecosystem in which AI characters and non-player characters (NPCs) that hold their own wallets autonomously acquire in-game goods while users' AI assistants trade game assets along optimal routes, drawing on MPC-based infrastructure, policy-driven controls, and ongoing AI-agent proof-of-concept initiatives.^[5]​^[1]​

NextGen Convergence Fellowship

On October 28, 2024, AhnLab Blockchain Company announced that it had completed the NextGen Convergence Fellowship, a youth employment and training initiative jointly operated by five organizations. The program ran over five months through September 2024 and provided 300 young job seekers aged 15 to 34 with professional training, hands-on work experience, and career mentoring across three areas: blockchain, edutech, and digital heritage.^[7] ABC served as the lead organization for the blockchain track, offering business-oriented training focused on applying blockchain technology through ABC Wallet, with participants gaining experience in service operations, quality assurance, marketing content creation, new business development, and team-based projects. Graduation ceremonies were held on September 11, 2024, at AhnLab's office south of Seoul, and the program concluded on October 27, 2024, with an event called "ABC Members Day," where graduates showcased project outcomes and networked.^[7]​

As Head of ABC Business, Lim said, "We are proud to have collaborated with leading organizations across the digital innovation landscape to provide young people with practical, field-oriented experiences in new digital industries," adding that "ABC will continue leveraging its capabilities to help build and expand a sustainable youth experience ecosystem that empowers the next generation to take an active role in shaping the digital economy."^[7]​