Share this article
Bank of Korea Says First Phase of CBDC Test Completed Successfully
South Korea's central bank will now test offline payments and protecting personal IDs.
Updated May 11, 2023, 5:13 p.m. Published Jan 24, 2022, 9:16 a.m.
In this article
The Bank of Korea wrapped up the first phase of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) simulation project in December, according to a report published on Monday.
- The first phase tested the basic functions of a CBDC including manufacturing, issuing and distribution in a simulation environment, the report said. It concluded that the CBDC “works normally” under test conditions.
- Based on the results of the first phase, the report said the South Korean central bank plans to explore implementing other functions such as offline payments and adding personal information protection enhancement technologies.
- In a separate statement, the bank said more experiments are needed to confirm if the CBDC would work as effectively in a real environment.
- After the second phase is completed this June, the bank plans to assess the project and continue usability experiments in cooperation with financial institutions.
- Central banks around the world are increasingly exploring CBDCs. China has been running trials for its digital currency eCNY over the past year while Nigeria's central bank launched the eNaira in October.
- Bank of Korea has been working on setting up a CBDC pilot project since at least 2020.
- Last July, Bank of Korea chose Ground X, a blockchain subsidiary of South Korean tech giant Kakao, to build the CBDC pilot platform.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Five Crypto Firms Win Initial Approvals as Trust Banks, Including Ripple, Circle, BitGo
The firms have obtained conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to convert into national trust banks.
What to know:
- Crypto firms Circle, Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo and Paxos received conditional approval by the OCC to become federally chartered trust banks.
- The move sets up firms to follow in the footsteps of Anchorage Digital, the first to get a federal bank trust charter in the U.S.
- A slew of stablecoin issuers and crypto firms, including Coinbase, filed for federal oversight after GENIUS Act was written into law.
Top Stories
