90% of global exchange trading volume is 'dollar coin'... 99% of Korea's is won

In the virtual asset industry, stablecoins linked to legal tender are no longer a strange presence. Domestic companies are the same. From simple investment to service fees and preparation for future business expansion, the purposes of holding are diverse. Kakao Investment currently holds 1.17 million USDT at the end of last year, and software companies Uprise and Adenasoft have approximately 650,000 and 640,000 USDT respectively. Game companies like Krafton (90,000) are also holding a significant number of USDT. Kim Min-seung, head of Korbit Research Center, explained, "Web 3.0 companies often acquire virtual assets such as USDT to acquire their own issued virtual assets, conduct business-related tests, and process various expenses." While the stablecoin era is moving beyond personal payments to the inter-corporate transaction market, there are criticisms that discussions about stablecoins in Korea are severely lacking. In fact, the rapid growth of global dominance of USDT and USDC is because major virtual asset exchanges have adopted dollar stablecoins as the base currency for all transactions. Just as the dollar serves as the key currency in international financial transactions, dollar stablecoins are taking on this role in the virtual asset market. According to CoinGecko, a virtual asset data platform, on this day, USDT accounts for 56.4% of the most traded currency on Binance, the global top exchange. Another dollar stablecoin, FDUSD, and USDC followed with 15.33% and 8.6% respectively. Dollar stablecoins account for about 80% of the transaction amount by currency. The situation is similar in other global major exchanges. OKX has USDT at 85.32% and USDC at 3.45%, with dollar stablecoins accounting for 89% of total transaction amount. Bybit has USDT at 86.32% and USDC at 4.24%, exceeding 90%. In contrast, on Upbit, Korea's top exchange, while USDT can be used to trade other virtual assets, its trading proportion is only 0.03%. Over 99% of transactions are conducted in Korean won. While domestic virtual asset users buy and sell assets through won deposited in real-name accounts, global exchanges fundamentally trade virtual assets using USDT or USDC instead of legal tender. An industry insider explained, "Dollar stablecoins have maintained close cooperative relationships with major exchanges from the market's early stages and have gained a first-mover advantage by being chosen by users based on stability and convenience." The industry is calling for issuing a won stablecoin and making it the base currency for domestic exchanges in response to dollar stablecoins' penetration into real-economy payment and remittance. This is because Upbit and Bithumb's trading volumes are comparable to the world's largest exchanges. According to a Hashd Open Research report, Korean won surpassed the US dollar in global virtual asset trading volume in the first quarter of last year. To achieve this, advice is emerging to restructure the current issuance and circulation system that only connects 'legal won → bank real-name account → exchange deposit/withdrawal'. Kim Yong-beom, representative of Hashd Open Research and former vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, emphasized, "A structure has emerged that can circulate without banks and operate like digital currency within exchanges. We must bring won stablecoins into the system while maintaining bank-based regulations, allowing exchanges, issuers, and wallet operators to coexist."