Naver Teams Up With Chiliz To Launch New Crypto Wallet

Posted by By Dan Taylor 3 Min Read

South Korean tech leader Naver has launched its first digital asset wallet, called Naver Pay Wallet, targeting the growing web3 market. The wallet is being rolled out in partnership with Chiliz, a blockchain platform focused on sports and entertainment.

Naver Pay Wallet is built as a non-custodial wallet, meaning users will have full control over their private keys and digital assets. This marks a shift from traditional mobile wallets, which typically manage user keys on their behalf.

Naver already operates one of South Korea’s most widely used payment services, Naver Pay, accepted by more than 97,000 merchants both online and offline. Now, with blockchain integration, the company aims to expand into digital assets and NFTs.

Focus On Loyalty And Utility

Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus said the goal is not just to build another crypto wallet. Instead, the focus is on using blockchain for utility and loyalty programs.

The wallet will give Naver the ability to explore blockchain-based loyalty systems for its merchant partners. This could include integrating fan tokens, decentralized app (dApp) access, and digital collectibles directly into the Naver ecosystem.

The wallet is currently in beta and is available to 33 million Naver Pay users. It is expected to grow beyond the Chiliz Chain, which is the first supported blockchain. While the partnership does not involve financial investment between the two companies, Dreyfus confirmed that other blockchain integrations are possible in the future.

Targeting Tech-Savvy Users

According to Dreyfus, the wallet is aimed at tech-savvy South Koreans already using Naver Pay who are interested in blockchain technology, especially in sports, entertainment, and NFTs.

Naver Pay Wallet is designed to be user-friendly. Dreyfus believes it could help lower the barrier for everyday users to try blockchain services. With Naver’s strong user base and local dominance, the wallet could become the “Apple Pay or Google Pay” of South Korea, he added.

As more digital wallets compete in the region, Naver’s entry — supported by Chiliz’s blockchain — positions it as a major player in bringing web3 to mainstream audiences.

Dan Taylor
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Dan Taylor is the founder and editor of International Search Insights (ISI), the publication behind ReadIsi, and a Partner and Head of Innovation (Search & AI) at SALT.agency. He has worked in search for more than a decade, in-house and agency-side, and is regarded as one of the West’s leading voices on search engines beyond Google, including Yandex, Baidu, Naver and Cốc Cốc. On ReadIsi, Dan covers the engines and AI answer platforms that English-language coverage tends to miss: Baidu and ERNIE, Yandex and Alice AI, Naver, Cốc Cốc, Shenma, Sogou, WeChat and Weibo search, plus DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. He also keeps dated records of documented changes, such as the Yandex, Baidu and Naver algorithm update histories and the DeepSeek, ERNIE and Qwen model update histories. His approach is to take learnings from global search engines and apply logic with a high evidence threshold. A claim needs a source, patterns seen in one market are treated as a hypothesis until they are checked in another, and where the evidence is thin he says so. For brands, that means advice built on what can be shown, with measurement that separates being cited from being chosen. Dan is credited with coining the term “edge SEO” and won the inaugural TechSEO Boost research competition in 2018 for his work on CDN and edge changes for SEO. In 2026 he was credited with coining “Infinite Tail” to describe how keyword research is changing with AI search. He is the author of AI Search Marketing For The Travel Sector, writes for Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land and Travel Marketing Guy, and has advised technology, SaaS, travel and enterprise ecommerce brands, including Cloudflare, GitLab and Airbnb. He has given multiple talks and panels at the International Search Summit in Barcelona, and has also spoken at Optimization Moscow, brightonSEO, Google Search Central Live Deep Dive Asia in Bangkok, Athens SEO and the Asia SEO Virtual Summit 2026, where his talk looked at how Baidu, Naver, DeepSeek, Tencent, Cốc Cốc and Yandex built their own AI answers.
Founder & Editor