Hashed Open Finance Releases Lightpaper for KRW Stablecoin Blockchain 'Maroo'

Hashed Open Finance, an affiliate of Hashed, on the 22nd released the lightpaper for 'Maroo', a blockchain network centered on a stablecoin backed by the South Korean won (KRW).

Maroo is a sovereign Layer 1 blockchain designed to preserve the openness and scalability of public blockchains while also addressing the financial sector’s requirements for regulatory compliance, auditability, and privacy protection. It aims to build digital financial infrastructure optimized for the KRW economy.

Hashed Open Finance is an entity established to commercialize stablecoins, real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and security token offerings (STO), and Maroo’s first application will be a KRW stablecoin. It plans to expand to other fiat currencies in line with regulatory environments in each country.

As existing public blockchains have revealed limitations in balancing anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements with privacy protection due to their anonymity-based structures, Maroo proposed an architecture to address these gaps. It enables users to pay transaction fees in a KRW stablecoin, allowing use without a separate cryptoasset, and introduced a dual structure that runs both an 'Open Path' for permissionless transactions and a 'Regulated Path' that applies regulatory requirements.

It was also designed to respond flexibly to regulatory changes through a 'programmable compliance layer' that determines, in code, factors such as transaction size, identity verification status, and sanctions status. Transaction information can be selectively disclosed, while a 'verifiable privacy' structure is included to enable supervision and audits when necessary. With an environment in mind where AI agents participate as financial actors, it also incorporates identity verification, permission settings, and spending-control functions.

Some of the technologies applied to Maroo have already been validated in real-world use cases. Last year, Hashed Open Finance partnered with the Busan Digital Asset Exchange to launch the digital wallet 'Bidan Jumoney' for Busan residents.

Kim Hojin, CEO of Hashed Open Finance, explained the meaning behind the name 'Maroo.' He said, "Maroo is a name inspired by the daecheong maru of a hanok," adding, "Like a space that naturally connects inside and outside, family and guests, the Maroo chain likewise aims for an open financial infrastructure where regulation and innovation, privacy and transparency coexist." He added, "The pure Korean word 'maroo' also carries the meaning of becoming a platform where a variety of fintech services are implemented based on a KRW stablecoin."

Hashed CEO Seojoon Kim emphasized Maroo’s strategic significance amid global trends. He said, "Stablecoins have already established themselves as a key pillar of global financial infrastructure," adding, "Maroo is an experiment that pursues global-standard technological openness while respecting Korea’s regulatory environment." He added, "I hope it will become a foundation on which banks, financial institutions, and fintech companies can jointly explore next-generation financial services."