stable coins

Story: South Korea’s Stablecoin Gap: Hashed and Solana Policy Institute Push for Interim Rules

By Evie Vavasseur

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The June Symposium and the Bank-Fintech Compromise. On June 23, a symposium brought together lawmakers, legal professionals, and industry participants…

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Why the Delay Keeps Mattering. Stablecoin adoption across Asia has grown sharply in recent years, and South Korea is no exception.

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South Korea needs interim stablecoin rules. Fast. That's the core message from a new policy report by Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute, released Wednesday,…

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The report doesn't mince words. South Korea's legislative process has stalled badly enough that waiting for the full act to pass before doing anything on stablecoins would leave…

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Kim Hyobong, a partner at law firm Bae, Kim & Lee, laid out what he sees as the core problem.

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Kim also pointed to the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation as a model worth considering.

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More context: Visa Bets on OpenUSD and Tokenized Deposits in Stablecoin Push

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That's basically the argument Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute are making. It's not that the Digital Asset Basic Act is a bad idea.

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The report also spends real time on the licensing problem. Right now, financial institutions don't know whether they can legally offer stablecoin-related payment services.

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And the foreign stablecoin issue is probably underappreciated. South Korea can set whatever rules it wants for domestically issued stablecoins, but if there are no standards for…

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The Ahn Dogeol compromise — banks holding majority ownership, fintechs running operations — is interesting because it mirrors how some other jurisdictions have handled the…

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See also: Tether Brings USDT Settlement to Nairobi Securities Exchange in Tokenization Push

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South Korea hasn't said when interim regulations might actually get enacted. No timeline, no draft legislation, no formal commitment.

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The June 23 symposium was one data point in a longer conversation. Lawmakers, lawyers, industry players — they're all talking.

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South Korea's stablecoin rules, interim or otherwise, still have no confirmed enactment date.

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