South Korea's eight largest banks have filed more than 80 stablecoin-related trademarks. Fintech operators Toss and Kakao are building parallel won-pegged token infrastructure. The Bank of Korea has paused its central bank digital currency pilot. And the legislation meant to govern all of it — th...
"As the National Assembly moves closer to legislating won-denominated stablecoins, financial groups must take the lead in shaping and proactively building an ecosystem spanning issuance, distribution, usage and circulation." — Ham Young-joo, Chairman, Hana Financial Group
South Korea's eight largest banks have filed more than 80 stablecoin-related trademarks. Fintech operators Toss and Kakao are building parallel won-pegged token infrastructure. The Bank of Korea has paused its central bank digital currency pilot. And the legislation meant to govern all of it — the Digital Asset Basic Act — stalled again in April 2026 over a dispute about who gets to issue the tokens.
The result is a market where $77.5 billion in crypto assets sit on domestic exchanges, 16 million residents hold exchange accounts, $110 billion in capital fled to foreign platforms in 2025 due to regulatory gaps, and every major financial institution is building stablecoin infrastructure for a legal framework that does not yet exist. Korea's stablecoin race is the largest pre-regulatory land grab in Asian digital finance.
The scale of preparation is without precedent. KB Kookmin Bank alone has filed 81 stablecoin trademarks — 32 for won-denominated tokens and 49 for foreign currency pairs. Shinhan Bank has deployed a 20-person task force. Toss has registered 24 trademarks for a token called TOSSKRW. KakaoBank has entered active development on a won-pegged coin codenamed "Kakao Coin." All of this is happening while the core regulatory question — whether banks must hold 51% ownership of stablecoin issuers — remains unresolved.
South Korea's domestic crypto market reached 77.5 trillion won ($55.7 billion equivalent at current rates) across five regulated exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX — with 20% of the population actively trading, according to 2025 exchange data compiled by KED Global. More than 16 million residents hold exchange accounts, a figure that now exceeds the number of domestic stock brokerage accounts.
Daily crypto trading volume surpassed the combined average of the Korea Exchange's KOSPI and KOSDAQ markets at 10.7 trillion won in peak months. The user penetration rate reached 22.48% in 2025 and is projected at 23.85% for 2026, per Statista.
Despite this scale, an estimated $110 billion in crypto left South Korean platforms for foreign exchanges during 2025, according to CoinDesk reporting. The outflows were driven by limited product availability on domestic platforms — derivatives, margin trading, and most DeFi products remain unavailable under current rules — and delays in implementing the Digital Asset Basic Act.
The kimchi premium, the persistent price gap between Korean and global exchanges, compressed to 1.75% by year-end 2025, indicating that Korean prices increasingly track global benchmarks despite capital controls.
Eight major Korean banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, Hana, NongHyup, Industrial Bank of Korea, Suhyup, and Standard Chartered Korea — are preparing won-pegged stablecoin infrastructure through a consortium coordinated by the Open Blockchain & DID Association and overseen by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
KB Kookmin, the country's largest bank by assets, has filed 81 stablecoin-related trademarks with the Korean Intellectual Property Office: 32 for won-denominated tokens and 49 for foreign currency pair tokens. According to The Block, KB described the filings as "a preemptive effort in preparation for the upcoming stablecoin consortium."
Individual bank activity is extensive:
KB Kookmin and Shinhan are also running stablecoin settlement pilots tied to the Bank of Korea's deposit token testing program.
The bank consortium faces competition from Korea's two dominant fintech ecosystems.
Toss (Viva Republica): The super-app operator, with 30 million registered users and 24 million monthly active users, declared stablecoin issuance and distribution ambitions at the 2026 Blockchain Meetup Conference in Seoul. Toss has registered 24 trademarks for "TOSSKRW," a won-pegged stablecoin. The company has formed a blockchain group and is hiring for positions in wallets, nodes, transactions, and cryptography. Toss CEO Lee Seung-gun described a "Money 3.0" vision, stating the company aims to "complete a borderless financial super app by redesigning money itself."
Toss is weighing whether to build on a standalone Layer 1 mainnet or pursue a Layer 2 architecture. The company reported its first profitable year with 90.7 billion won ($63 million) in net income on 1.96 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in revenue. It plans a U.S. IPO in Q2 2026 at a valuation exceeding $10 billion, with an offering that could raise $2–3 billion.
Kakao Group: KakaoBank has entered active development on a won-pegged stablecoin, hiring blockchain backend developers and building infrastructure spanning smart contract execution, token standards, and full-node operations. KakaoPay filed six copyright applications for stablecoin ticker symbols: PKRW, KKRW, KRWP, KPKRW, KRWKP, and KRWK.
Kakao's broader strategy connects KakaoPay, KakaoBank, and KakaoTalk — a messaging app with near-universal penetration in Korea — into a unified digital wallet with direct peer-to-peer stablecoin payments. A joint won-stablecoin task force across Kakao Group divisions is coordinating the effort.
The central regulatory dispute concerns ownership requirements for stablecoin issuers.
The Bank of Korea insists that only entities with bank majority ownership (51% or more) should be permitted to issue won-backed stablecoins. The central bank argues that banks are subject to stringent solvency and anti-money-laundering requirements and are therefore the only institutions capable of ensuring systemic stability.
The Financial Services Commission (FSC), which oversees financial policymaking, opposes this position. The FSC has warned that a rigid 51% rule would suppress competition and block fintech firms with blockchain technical expertise from participating. The FSC cited two precedents:
The Democratic Party of Korea's Digital Asset Task Force has aligned with the FSC, opposing the 51% rule. The FSC is reportedly preparing an alternative legislative draft that removes the bank-majority ownership requirement.
Separately, regulators are debating a 34% cap on single-shareholder ownership in crypto exchanges, a provision that would affect Dunamu (Upbit's operator, in which K-Bank holds a significant stake) and reshape the exchange landscape.
The Bank of Korea paused its retail CBDC pilot in Q2 2025, citing high infrastructure costs, limited commercial incentives, and lukewarm bank participation, according to reporting by The Block. The suspension effectively ceded ground to private stablecoin initiatives.
However, the central bank has not fully abandoned the project. In March 2026, the Bank of Korea kicked off a new phase of real-world testing with nine commercial banks, focused on bank-issued deposit tokens for government subsidy disbursement. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure subsidies are expected to be among the first use cases.
The pivot reflects a pragmatic recalibration: rather than competing with private stablecoins, the digital won program is narrowing its scope to government payment rails where commercial stablecoin operators have less incentive to build.
In parallel with stablecoin development, the FSC has ended a nine-year prohibition on corporate cryptocurrency trading. Approximately 3,500 listed companies and professional investment firms are set to gain access to domestic crypto exchanges under new guidelines.
Key restrictions apply:
The Financial Supervisory Service has also deployed AI-powered surveillance to monitor whale trades and suspicious activity as part of its 2026 oversight plan.
The re-entry of corporate capital could meaningfully affect domestic liquidity. Korean crypto exchanges have operated as predominantly retail markets since the 2017 corporate ban. The addition of institutional order flow — even constrained to 5% of equity capital — introduces a new demand source for won-denominated trading pairs and, eventually, won-backed stablecoins.
As of April 5, 2026, the Digital Asset Basic Act has stalled again in the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, according to Seoul Economic Daily. Multiple factors are blocking passage:
Industry insiders cited by Seoul Economic Daily expressed concern that passage may not occur within 2026. If implementation timelines are factored in, the regulatory framework may not take effect until 2027 or later.
This creates a paradox: Korea's largest financial institutions are building stablecoin infrastructure at full speed, filing trademarks, hiring developers, and running settlement pilots, all for a product category that has no legal basis.
South Korea's stablecoin race is proceeding without a finish line. The country's financial institutions — banks, fintechs, and exchange operators — have collectively committed hundreds of trademark filings, dedicated engineering teams, and signed partnership agreements to build won-backed stablecoin infrastructure. The economic incentive is clear: a $77.5 billion domestic crypto market with 16 million users, plus $110 billion in annual outflows that regulated stablecoins could partially recapture.
The bottleneck is not technology or demand. It is regulatory architecture. The 51% ownership rule, the exchange shareholder cap, and the stalled Digital Asset Basic Act collectively define a legislative environment where every major player is building for a market that does not yet legally exist. If the law passes in its current form favoring banks, fintech operators like Toss and Kakao — which together reach virtually every Korean adult — face structural disadvantage. If the FSC's more permissive framework prevails, Korea's stablecoin market could become the most competitive in Asia.
Until the National Assembly resolves the impasse, Korea's stablecoin infrastructure buildout remains the largest pre-regulatory bet in digital finance.