"With stablecoins being brought into the regulatory mainstream, payment-focused blockchains are rising… Korea must accelerate its response"

As major economies around the world move quickly to bring stablecoins (digital assets pegged to the value of fiat currencies) into the regulatory mainstream, an analysis says it is necessary to pay attention to next-generation blockchains specialized for stablecoins. The report adds that Korea, too, must speed up its response to avoid falling behind global trends.

Korbit Research Center said in a report released on the 30th that "the regulatory mainstreaming of stablecoins has accelerated with the European Union's implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation and the U.S. GENIUS Act," adding that "as a result, the technical and institutional requirements to use stablecoins as practical financial infrastructure are becoming clearer."

Stablecoins have long drawn attention as a payment instrument, but several limitations have constrained their use in the real economy. The report said, "Existing public blockchain infrastructure has struggled to meet privacy requirements, and slow finality made it difficult to use for real-time payments or inter-institution settlement," and added that "the structure requiring users to hold a separate gas-fee asset to transfer stablecoins has also served as a hurdle to mainstream adoption."

The report assessed that "in this environment, stablecoin-specialized Layer 1s have emerged as an alternative." A stablecoin-specialized Layer 1 refers to a blockchain designed to complement the shortcomings of existing public blockchains by implementing, at the protocol level, fast transaction finality, selective privacy and regulatory-compliance features.

Stablecoin-specialized Layer 1s include Arc, which Circle is developing, Stripe's Tempo, Plasma (XPL) and Canton (CC).

Against this global backdrop, Korbit Research Center argues that Korea must also pick up the pace. The report said, "Before U.S. dollar stablecoin-specialized Layer 1s become the global standard, strategic preparations are needed for domestic payment and settlement infrastructure premised on Korean won stablecoins," stressing that "if Korea fails to respond proactively, it cannot be ruled out that the country's on-chain financial infrastructure could become dependent on overseas U.S. dollar stablecoin networks."

Still, attempts to build stablecoin-specialized infrastructure are continuing domestically as well. A representative example is Maroo by Hashed Open Finance. The report said, "Maroo is being positioned as a stablecoin-specialized Layer 1 tailored to Korea's regulatory environment on the premise of using Korean won stablecoins," and assessed it as "a case that allows review of its potential as a mainstream payment and settlement infrastructure, centered on fast transaction finality and a regulatory-compliance architecture."