Ahn Do-geol Says Stablecoins to Transform Payments, Remittances as Bill Merger Nears Finish

Ahn Do-geol of the Democratic Party of Korea said stablecoins are becoming a core part of future financial infrastructure and that efforts to put the sector on a legal footing have advanced considerably. Work led by the party’s digital-asset task force to merge related bills is in its final stage, he said.

Ahn made the remarks in a keynote address on June 23 at Hashed Lounge in Seoul’s Gangnam district during a policy symposium titled “Toward Korea as a Digital G2: The Future of Digital Assets and Capital Markets — Choices for the US and Korea.”

“Stablecoins are changing future financial infrastructure beyond being simple investment products,” he said.

He called stablecoins a form of money and said they deserve close attention because money is the foundation and engine of all financial and real-economy transactions. In international remittances and payments, stablecoins are more efficient than the existing SWIFT-based financial network in terms of fees, processing time and accessibility, he said.

Ahn cited remittances by foreign workers, payments for K-content and spending by foreign tourists as major use cases. He said the annual foreign-worker remittance market totals 5 trillion won ($3.6 billion), the K-content market 21 trillion won ($15.2 billion), and the foreign-tourist services market 31 trillion won ($22.4 billion). “There is expectation that stablecoins can be used in these areas,” he said.

Ahn also said their utility could grow further in the age of artificial intelligence. If agentic AI eventually carries out round-the-clock transactions and payments on behalf of people, the role of stablecoins as a real-time payment tool could expand, he said.

He said broad consensus has formed around the direction of stablecoin regulation. “Stablecoins are now unavoidable,” Ahn said, adding that there was also agreement that central bank digital currencies and privately led stablecoins should develop in parallel.

At the same time, he made clear that stablecoins should function as a means of payment rather than a tool for asset accumulation. Discussions are moving toward requiring stablecoins to be pegged one-to-one to the won and backed by reserve assets equal to the amount issued, he said. Those reserves should be highly liquid assets that can be converted into cash immediately, and mechanisms are also needed to meet user redemption requests.

Among the remaining legislative issues, Ahn cited rules on who can issue stablecoins and ownership-dispersion regulations for exchanges. He said policymakers are reviewing institutional compromises on balancing banks’ safety-net role with innovation by fintech firms and nonbank players, as well as measures covering exchange governance and conflicts of interest.

On the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act, Ahn said the Democratic Party’s digital-asset task force is in the final stage of merging the bills. He also pointed to the need for follow-up legislation.

The Digital Asset Basic Act alone would not be enough to complete the issuance and distribution ecosystem, he said, adding that parallel revisions are needed to the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, the Act on Reporting and Use of Certain Financial Transaction Information, and the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. A separate task force has already completed a draft bill related to the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, he said.

On the pace of legislation, Ahn said the process may be somewhat slower than the market expects, but more time is needed to improve the framework’s completeness. Because digital-asset regulation would have broad ripple effects, predictable risk factors and operating mechanisms need to be fully tested, he said. The system is being designed with innovation, market trust and consistency with international norms in mind, he added.