Wavebridge to Hold 'Bridge Seoul 2026' on Oct. 1 With Tether, Robinhood, Solana

Wavebridge, a digital-asset infrastructure company for institutional clients, said on Sept. 22 that it will hold "Bridge Seoul 2026" at the Glad Hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, on Oct. 1. The invitation-only event will bring together about 250 key participants from domestic and overseas financial firms and digital-asset companies.

This year's theme is "Institutional Onchain Rails, Now Live." The event is intended to move beyond discussions over whether to enter the digital-asset market and focus instead on the infrastructure and business strategies needed for actual payments, settlement and asset distribution.

Rep. Min Byung-duk of the Democratic Party and Rep. Choi Eun-seok of the People Power Party, along with Korea Fintech Industry Association Chairman Kim Jong-hyun, will deliver congratulatory remarks. Wavebridge Chief Executive Officer Oh Jong-wook will give a keynote speech on "The Next Five Years of Korea's Digital Asset Market." The Solana Foundation will outline its vision for an "internet capital market" in which assets and payments are conducted on blockchain.

The stablecoin session will feature Tether and Paxos, the issuer of Global Dollar, or USDG. Evan Palmer, director of APAC growth at Paxos, and Anthony Martin, head of expansion for Tether's Wallet Development Kit, are scheduled to discuss stablecoin issuance and distribution, as well as wallet infrastructure. Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto International, will also take part in a discussion.

In South Korea, BC Card, K Bank and KakaoBank will share their preparations in payments and settlement, including linking stablecoins with card payments and banking-sector pilot programs. KB Securities, together with the Canton Foundation, will present settlement infrastructure for tokenized securities and cross-border payment and distribution cases.

In asset management, Kim Nam-ki, head of the ETF management division at Mirae Asset Global Investments, will present a digital-asset strategy spanning exchange-traded funds to stablecoins. A white paper on the introduction of spot digital-asset ETFs in South Korea, jointly written by Wavebridge, the Jito Foundation and six other domestic and overseas institutions, will also be unveiled. The paper includes the foundational structure needed for a domestic rollout, including spot ETF operations, index calculation, valuation and custody.

In the policy session, Yoon Sung-kwan, head of the Digital Currency Research Lab at the Bank of Korea, will explain preparations for a digital won, including a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Shim Won-tae, a lawyer at Kim & Chang, and Kang Ryeon-ho, a lawyer at Shin & Kim, will discuss legal issues financial institutions should review ahead of the enactment of the Digital Asset Basic Act.

The event will consist of five sessions covering asset management and capital, payments and settlement, global markets, ETFs, and policy and currency. The Solana Foundation, Fireblocks and institutional digital-asset exchange EDXM will participate as major sponsors.

"Institutional interest is shifting from whether to adopt digital assets to how to use them in practice," Oh said. He added that the event will provide a venue for domestic financial firms and global issuers and infrastructure companies to discuss practical approaches.