Stablecoin giant Circle made big moves towards expanding its presence in South Korea on Monday in the presence of its CEO, Jeremy Allaire. While the USDC-issuer inked partnerships with market titans Bithumb and Dunamu, it confirmed that the issuance of a KRW-based stablecoin is not on the cards for now.
Clrcle’s plan for South Korea bids less on issuance and more on providing blockchain and stablecoin infrastructure to existing financial players there. Essentially, Circle plans to help South Korean fintech players to develop their own stablecoins using its technologies.
“The Korean market is a very technologically advanced market. The population of Korea has already shown a strong interest in crypto and other digital assets, and so having a high propensity around that is very important,” Allaire said at a press conference on Monday in Seoul.
This motive outlined by Circle also aligns with the two partnerships that it finalized in the nation toda.
Breakdown of the Circle’s South Korea partnership announcements
Circle signed Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) with Bithumb and Dunamu on Monday. While Bithumb is a major South Korean exchange, Dunamu is the operating entity of the Upbit exchange that commands a strong hold over South Korea’s digital assets market.
Allaire also reportedly visited the Bithumb headquarters in Seoul. As part of the agreement, both Circle and Bithumb will work on ways to increase multichain capabilities on Bithumb. In addition, the entities will also work on strengthening the stablecoin ecosystem for the exchange.
With Dunamu, on the other hand, the signed MoU entails the joint promotion of educational projects around crypto including stablecoins involving Circle. The collaboration is also likely to work on improving crypto information assessibility for the investor community.
Allaire is viewing the South Korean market as “highly attractive”.
The company is also on the lookout for other partners in South Korea with whom meaningful partnerships could be explored. Circle has been engaging with talks with commercial banks including KB Kookmin Bank, Shinhan Bank and Hana Bank, as per Korea Times.
Circle’s hope for regulatory clarity
Allire said he is paying a close attention to the ongoing regulatory developments in South Korea.
At present, the regulators of the country are ramping up discussions aiming to finalize comprehensive crypto laws.
In February this year, for instance, Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won proposed that South Korea should mandate a new legislation that will require social media stars who promote crypto and equities disclose details of their own holdings and if they are being paid to promote digital assets schemes and services.
The Asian nation is also discussing the implementation of an AI system to monitor crypto transactions. This could be finalized before 2027’s tax update.
Legislations around tokenized real world assets, stablecoins, and crypto withdrawals are also priority for the South Korean lawmakers.
“With these laws, if they create a way for a company like Circle to come in, operate and be regulated here, that would be very welcome,” the Circle CEO said. “We’ve seen that in other major countries, like Hong Kong, where we’re stepping up operations, as well as Singapore, Japan, the UAE and Europe.”
Circle’s conference in Seoul was intended to bring builders, institutions, and leaders from across South Korea’s digital assets ecosystem to shed more light on the route to development, it said on X.
Earlier last week, Allaire had travelled to Jakarta to open discussions around financial access through stablecoins and crypto in Indonesia. The Circle team, there, opened discussions around local market structure and efficient movement of funds nationally as well as internationally.
This month, Circle also rolled out its Stablecoin Payouts service in Singapore to enable institutional clients facilitate international payments capabilities.
While the company is clearly making expansion movements outside of the U.S., it did face a slight hiccup in the stock market after Tether roped-in a big-four firm to conduct its first full audit. Immediately after the announcement, Circle’s stock price dipped by 19 percent to trade at $100. The current price of CRCL stands at $97.68 with a 3.46 percent surge over the last 24 hours, data by TradingView showed.