South Korea

Stablecoins could save South Korean merchants up to $3.8 billion a year, budget office says
South Korea’s budget office warned that stablecoin adoption could reduce banks' roles as credit intermediaries and potentially destabilize token pegs during mass redemptions.

South Korea targets February 2027 rollout for full tokenized securities market
Financial regulators unveiled a phased roadmap moving traditional capital markets onto distributed ledgers, concluding with onchain stablecoin settlement.

Visa doubles down on South Korea with Upbit operator Dunamu on stablecoin payments
Following a deal with Shinhan Financial, the global payments giant is widening its footprint in Asia’s major crypto hub through South Korea's largest exchange.

Mirae Asset eyes $109 billion crypto empire after acquiring Digital X
Park Hyeon-joo, Mirae Asset Financial Group’s founder, outlined his ambitious stablecoin, RWAs, and STOs plan for Digital X, formerly known as Korbit, in an event for his employees.

South Korea’s top financial conglomerate team up with Visa to test stablecoin issuance and B2B settlements
Shinhan Financial Group will use Visa’s platform to test stablecoin issuance, remittance, and redemption while building new AI-powered payment models.

South Korea trade giant POSCO brings trade receivables to Avalanche in latest tokenization move
The $22 billion trading company worked with Olea and Intain on the transaction, following an Injective pilot with LG CNS last month.

BitGo secures South Korea virtual asset license, says it's the first global crypto company to do so
Backed by Hana Financial Group and SK Telecom, BitGo Korea built a locally registered entity from scratch to serve institutional and enterprise clients, rather than taking the acquisition route.

Samsung is poised to become a dominant stablecoin distributor, analysts say
Samsung seeks to turn 800 million Galaxy phones into wallets for digital assets and blockchain payments, backed by a deeper play in crypto infrastructure.

South African lawmakers propose draft rules on cross-border crypto transactions
A draft rulebook proposes that sending crypto offshore must be conducted through an authorized provider and be reported to the central bank’s FinSurv.

Bithumb now targets 2028 IPO after major internal restructuring
The South Korean crypto trading platform plans to see a preliminary listing review in 2027, but did not identify a proposed listing venue yet.
