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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper

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Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked…

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August 25, 2025

Crypto advocates, IT experts, and media outlets are concerned that lawmakers’ deliberations on South Korea’s stablecoin legislation have “slowed to a standstill.”

The South Korean newspaper Busan Ilbo reported that all four stablecoin-related draft laws submitted to the National Assembly in recent months are currently stuck in the committee stage.

S Korea’s Stablecoin Legislation: Stuck in Committee

The bills’ delay, the newspaper wrote, is due to the fact that regulators and lawmakers cannot agree on key terms. Busan Ilbo wrote:

“Discussions on institutionalizing stablecoins in South Korea are stuck at a standstill. This stems from persistent disagreements between the National Assembly, the government, and the Bank of Korea (BOK).”

The outlet noted that the parties cannot agree on the question of whether they should let fintech and IT firms issue coins.

More conservative voices at the BOK and in the government want to restrict issuance to domestic commercial banks.

The question of whether or not to let fintech firms issue KRW-pegged coins is extremely sensitive in South Korea.

The country’s business space is dominated by large conglomerates known as chaebol. All of these firms have advanced finance and tech subsidiaries.

In recent years, internet giants such as Naver and Kakao have also moved into the space. The BOK and others fear that letting firms issue KRW-pegged coins will lead to the rise of big tech-controlled “private currencies.”

Historically, chaebol have wielded enormous political and financial influence in South Korea. The BOK is concerned that surrendering its monopoly on currency issuance to these firms (or new tech giants like Naver) will erode its power.

Conversely, the BOK exercises considerable regulatory powers over the commercial banking space. As such, it seems ready to dig its heels in on the matter.

Equity Requirements

The four bills all feature varying requirements for stablecoin issuers. The most progressive of the quartet proposes ensuring issuers have a minimum of 500 million won ($360,026) in equity capital.

This bill would essentially open the door to startups that wish to start issuing KRW-pegged stablecoins.

But the most conservative of the bills states that only firms with a minimum of 5 billion won ($3.6 million) in equity capital can enter the market.

Busan Ilbo wrote that the review process has been divided between two of the National Assembly’s committees, namely the Political Affairs Committee and the Strategy and Finance Committee.

This split is “hindering progress,” the outlet remarked. A senior official at a South Korean blockchain industry firm, speaking to Cryptonews.com on condition of anonymity, said:

“This delay is very frustrating. The government should make up its mind quickly, either way. Our rivals in other countries aren’t being left in limbo like us.”

Playing Catchup with Washington

South Korean critics have pointed to progress on stablecoins in Germany, China, and Japan, as well as the US.

The Japanese Financial Services Agency is reportedly set to authorize the Tokyo-based fintech company JYPC’s bid to issue the nation’s first yen-pegged stablecoin.

Experts in Seoul think that Berlin, Tokyo, and Beijing are all acting in response to events in Washington; keen to avoid a “unipolar” drift toward the US dollar.

US President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July this year. The act sets out a range of regulatory requirements for would-be stablecoin issuers.

Last week, the President of the USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle Heath Tarbert held a stablecoin-themed meeting with the BOK Governor Rhee Chang-yong.

Tarbert also met with some of South Korea’s top bankers. The Circle chief spoke to top executives from financial behemoths like Kookmin, Woori, and Shinhan.

Two of South Korea’s biggest political parties are on the centre stage, and have announced their rival Stubcoin bills within the country. The ban on paying interest on Stablecoins is the most controversial issue in the Stablecoin bill.

Lawmakers from both the ruling Democratic Party (DP) and the opposition People’s Rights Party (PPP) introduced laws in late July 2025 that could pave the way for winning stubcoins.

According to a local news report released on July 28, 2025,His ruling party believes interest payments should be banned to prevent market disruption, but the opposition believes that winning stubcoins need to be competitive. ”

Each proposal reflects differences in innovation, protection and financial sovereignty.

South Korea has introduced a stubcoin law to support winners led by President Lee Jae Myung. Key players Ahn Do-Geol and Jin Sung-Joon develop a framework focused on financial stability and draw lessons from the Terra-Luna Crisis. Moef and Bok will work together to secure regulators… pic.twitter.com/orjuxdwmfs

– binodes (@binodes_) July 29, 2025

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South Korea’s bill addresses the growing advantage of USD-based stubcoins

South Korean Democratic Party member Ando-Geol has introduced the “Law on the Issuance and Distribution of Valued Digital Assets.” On the same day, People Power Member Eun-Hye Kim introduced “Payment Innovation Method Using Fixed-Price Digital Assets.”

The DP initiative is the country’s first comprehensive legislative blueprint to specifically manage stubcoins that support South Korea’s victory. Meanwhile, the opposition PPP has submitted its own version that emphasizes stricter financial discipline and explicitly prohibits Stablecoin Holdings’ interest payments.

The newly elected South Korean president, Lee Jae-myeon, has openly advocated for stubcoin, and his administration shows that it will fill a major gap in the country’s financial environment.

Jae-Myung proposes low company eligibility in defending Stablecoins, as a 500m winner ($370,000) to be able to issue Stablecoins.

Exploration: Korea’s CBDC test paused in favor of stubcoin

South Korea suspends CBDC plans as Stablecoins acquire the ground

Increased market penetration and the adoption of stubcoin have put dampers on South Korea’s CBDC plan. The country has applied the brakes to its continued CBDC trial program since April this year, triggering the revival of Stablecoin amid political support.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) confirmed the current situation in a statement given to Bloomberg via its representative on June 30, 2025.

Additionally, senior representatives of one of the seven banks participating in the CBDC trial in South Korea have informed local publications of how the CBDC will consolidate until the central bank sees the government’s Stablecoin strategy.

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A new wave of cyberattacks shows the DPRK is exploiting the crypto industry’s recruitment funnel, using fake LinkedIn job offers, deep‑fake Zoom calls, and backdoored interview files to access Web3 developers’ wallets and repositories.

With seasoned developer talent already thinning and open‑source protocols increasingly reliant on individual contributors, the stakes have never been higher.

North Korean hackers developer infiltration

On 18 June , cybersecurity firm Huntress reported a campaign attributed to BlueNoroff, a notorious Lazarus Group subgroup targeting a developer at a major Web3 foundation.

The ruse began with a polished recruiter pitch on LinkedIn, followed by what appeared to be a Zoom interview with a senior executive. In reality, the video feed was a deep‑fake, and the “technical‑assessment” file the candidate was asked to run, `zoom_sdk_support.scpt`, deployed cross‑platform malware dubbed BeaverTail that can harvest seed phrases, crypto‑wallets, and GitHub credentials.

These tactics represent a sharp escalation. “In this new campaign, the threat‑actor group is using three front companies in the crypto consulting industry … to spread malware via ‘job‑interview lures,’” researchers at Silent Push wrote in April, referring to companies such as BlockNovas, SoftGlide, and Angeloper. All three maintained U.S. corporate registrations and LinkedIn job posts that easily passed HR sniff tests.

The FBI seized the BlockNovas domain in April . By then, multiple developers had reportedly sat through fake Zoom calls where they were urged to install custom apps or run scripts. Many complied.

These aren’t simple smash‑and‑grab scams but part of a well‑funded, state‑directed campaign. Since 2017, North Korean hacking groups have stolen over $1.5 billion in crypto, including the $620 million Ronin/Axie Infinity hack.

The stolen assets are routinely funneled through mixers such as Tornado Cash and Sinbad, laundering Pyongyang’s take and ultimately bankrolling its weapons programme, according to the U.S. Treasury.

“For years, North Korea has exploited global remote IT contracting and crypto ecosystems to evade U.S. sanctions and bankroll its weapons programs,” said Sue J. Bai of the DoJ’s National Security Division. On 16 June, her office announced the seizure of $7.74 million in crypto tied to the fake‑IT‑worker scheme.

Crypto developer focus

The targets are carefully selected. The open‑source nature of crypto protocols means that a single engineer, often pseudonymous and globally distributed, may hold commit privileges to critical infrastructure, from smart contracts to bridge protocols.

Electric Capital’s most recent publicly available Developer Report counted about 39,148 new active crypto developers, with total developers down roughly 7% year‑on‑year. Industry analysts say the supply of seasoned maintainers has only tightened, making each compromised developer disproportionately dangerous.

That imbalance is why the hiring pipeline itself has become a cybersecurity battleground. Once a front‑company recruiter gets past HR, engineers, eager for stability in a bearish market, may not spot the red flags in time. In several cases, the attackers even used Calendly links and Google Meet invites that silently redirected victims to attacker‑controlled Zoom look‑alike domains.

The malware stack is advanced and modular. Huntress and Unit 42 have catalogued BeaverTail, InvisibleFerret, and OtterCookie variants, all compiled with the Qt framework for cross‑platform compatibility. Once installed, the tools scrape browser extensions such as MetaMask and Phantom, exfiltrate `wallet.dat` files, and search for terms like “mnemonic” or “seed” in plaintext files.

Yet despite the technical sophistication, law‑enforcement pressure is mounting. The FBI’s domain seizures, the DoJ’s financial forfeitures, and Treasury sanctions on mixers have begun to raise the cost of doing business for Pyongyang’s hackers. The regime, however, remains adaptive.

Each new shell company, recruiter persona, or malware payload arrives wrapped in more convincing packaging. Thanks to generative‑AI tools, even the fake executives in live calls now look and move credibly. DeFi’s trustless systems still rely on a surprisingly small and vulnerable circle of trusted human maintainers.

North Korean crypto target onslaught

Recent CryptoSlate coverage paints a broader canvas of Pyongyang’s crypto onslaught. One year-end analysis found that North Korea-linked groups siphoned $1.34 billion from 47 hacks in 2024, which was a total of 61 % of all crypto stolen that year.

A big slice of that tally came from the $305 million breach of Japan’s DMM Bitcoin, which the FBI says started when a TraderTraitor operative posed as a LinkedIn recruiter and slipped a malicious “coding test” to a Ginco wallet engineer.

The same playbook escalated this February when the bureau attributed a record $1.5 billion Bybit exploit to Lazarus, noting the thieves had already laundered 100,000 ETH through THORChain within days.

North Korean operatives are impersonating venture capitalists, recruiters, and remote IT workers, using AI-generated profiles and deep-fake interviews, to earn salaries, exfiltrate source code, and extort firms in what Microsoft researchers call a “triple-threat” scheme.

In a world where jobs can be remote, trust is digital, and software runs the money, the subsequent state‑sponsored breach may begin not with an exploit but with a handshake.

Mentioned in this article

Author

Tim Alper

Author

Tim Alper

About Author

Tim Alper is a British journalist and features writer who has worked at Cryptonews.com since 2018. He has written for media outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, and Chosun Ilbo. He has also worked…

Share

Last updated: 

May 24, 2025

Lawmakers close to Lee Jae-myung, the frontrunner in the South Korean presidential elections, have called for Seoul to steal a march on Washington by fast-tracking the rollout of a KRW stablecoin.

The South Korean media outlet Edaily quoted Min Byoung-dug, a lawmaker for the Democratic Party and the chairman of the party’s Digital Asset Committee, as stating that stablecoins could soon become an industry on an equal footing with AI or semiconductors. Min said:

“South Korean is an internet powerhouse. We need to take the lead in institutionalizing stablecoins before US dollar-based stablecoins become firmly established. That is the only way we can secure a sure position in the global battle for stablecoin hegemony.”

KRW Stablecoin Rollout: The Time Is Now

Min added that he thought the potential for stablecoin adoption in the payments space was “limitless.” He explained:

“We should not just sit back and watch it grow into a powerful new future industry on the scale of AI or semiconductors.”

Min is a close Lee ally and an open advocate of crypto regulation reform. He has also previously called for tax parity between South Korean stock traders and crypto investors.

Lee has repeatedly promised to launch a state-backed KRW stablecoin in response to the rapid rise of USD-pegged coins like USDT and USD Coin (USDC).

The frontrunner, who leads his closest rival Kim Moon-soo (People Power Party) in the polls by almost 10%, has called for Seoul to “enter the stablecoin market quickly.”

Lee has warned that delaying the launch of such a coin could lead to further capital flight from the country.

Min echoed Lee’s calls, telling EDaily that Seoul “must expedite the institutionalization of stablecoins.”

He explained that South Korea “should not fall behind as the use of stablecoins rapidly increases, particularly in the United States.”

USDT, USDC Dominance

Min noted the fact that USDT and USDC “account for 90% of the stablecoin market in the United States.”

He also claimed that USD-pegged coins “are already being used in some parts of Korea, such as Dongdaemun Market, where many foreign payments are made.”

Min’s comments about Dongdaegmun Market, Seoul’s biggest clothing and textiles market, may be seen as contentious.

Posters on popular South Korean crypto forums last year claimed that “mass USDT adoption” was underway at Dongdaemun, with Chinese buyers particularly keen on the coin.

However, Dongaemun traders have told both Cryptonews.com and South Korean media outlets that cash, not crypto, is still king at the market.

Regardless, Min said that rapid adoption at home and overseas means Seoul risks being left out in the cold.

He said that if USDT and USDC continue to gain popularity worldwide, the space a won-based stablecoin could fill “will inevitably diminish.”

Could Lawmakers Act Before June 3 Elections?

Min claimed that a won-based stablecoin could gain global attention and drive up global demand for won-related assets, such as the government bonds underpinning a KRW stablecoin.

The lawmaker said that fans of South Korean webtoons (web-based comics) could be among the first overseas users. Readers may use a won-based stablecoin to buy webtoons, Min said.

Min added that he is already pushing for the National Assembly to approve stablecoin legislation.

The DP has a large majority in the house going into the elections. And with the nation essentially rudderless following the impeachment earlier this year of former President Yoon Suk-yeol, the party may yet decide to push ahead with such a bill before the June 3 elections.

Min has already unveiled a private member’s bill named the Basic Act on Digital Assets, prepared with the aid of industry experts.

The lawmaker said of the draft law: “I plan to submit the bill to the National Assembly after another review.”

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As South Korea heads into its upcoming presidential election scheduled for June 3, the People Power Party (PPP) has introduced a wide-ranging set of crypto policy proposals aimed at reshaping the country’s digital asset market.

In a meeting held Monday at the National Assembly, the PPP outlined seven new initiatives that include lifting key restrictions on banks working with crypto exchanges and introducing legal frameworks to support the development of tokenized assets and spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The proposals come amid a transitional political environment following the impeachment and removal of President Yoon Suk-yeol in April. With the election drawing near, the PPP’s policy pivot toward digital asset regulation appears to be a strategic move to engage the growing population of crypto users and investors in the country.

South Korea has historically maintained a strict oversight regime on cryptocurrency markets, particularly in response to past concerns over money laundering and speculative trading activity.

Crypto ETFs and Exchange Rules at the Center of PPP’s Reform Plan

Among the most notable measures announced by the PPP is a plan to lift the existing restriction that limits crypto exchanges to partnering with only one bank for real-name verified accounts.

This “one exchange, one bank” rule was originally introduced by financial authorities to increase transparency and monitor suspicious financial activity. Critics have argued, however, that the rule has restricted competition and limited banking access for new or smaller crypto exchanges.

In addition, the PPP has pledged to legalize the trading of spot crypto ETFs within South Korea before the end of the year. Party lawmaker Park Soo-min noted during the session that spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US have already gained considerable attention and trading volume.

According to Park, South Korea’s continued delay in approving such products could place it at a competitive disadvantage in the rapidly evolving global digital asset space. While both the PPP and the Democratic Party have previously expressed interest in lifting the ETF ban, this marks the PPP’s clearest commitment to date.

Regulatory Commitments Include Stablecoin Framework and Security Tokens

The policy roadmap also includes plans to create a legal framework for security token offerings (STOs) and establish comprehensive guidelines for the issuance and regulation of stablecoins.

The aim, according to party officials, is to align with global standards and provide regulatory clarity for issuers and investors alike. These efforts would be supported by the introduction of the “Digital Asset Promotion Basic Act,” a legislative proposal intended to formalize the country’s long-term crypto policy.

To oversee these initiatives, the PPP plans to launch a dedicated crypto policy committee under the leadership of its presidential candidate.

The committee will focus on encouraging responsible innovation, supporting the domestic crypto industry, and restoring investor confidence following a period of heightened regulatory scrutiny.

Given all these at play, South Korea’s position in the global digital asset market could be significantly impacted depending on the outcome of the June election and the subsequent implementation of these policy changes.

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announcement It was It was held at the Emergency Response Committee meeting on Monday, April 28th, 2025. This is due to political tensions rising following the recent release of President Yoon Seok Yeol’s recent ammo each and removal over the illegal imposition of martial law.

Radioactive fallout was the setting for the SNAP presidential election on June 3, with crypto policy emerging as an important campaign issue.

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The ruling party pledges to legalize the Spot Crypto ETF

The heart of the PPP pledge is the legalization of Spot Crypto ETFs. This is a move aimed at aligning South Korea with global financial markets.

Citing the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision in January to approve the Spot Bitcoin ETF, Congressman Park Soo-Min emphasized the urgency to pace it with international regulatory development.

Alongside the ETF push, the parties have pledged to dismantle the “one exchange, one bank” rules. This currently limits cryptocurrency exchanges to a single bank partner.

Critics argue that the policy has curtailed competition and consumer choices in the country’s fast-growing digital asset market. “It’s extremely restrictive to not be able to exchange virtual assets through your preferred bank,” Park said in a session in the Parliament.

Further proposals include expanding access to the crypto market For institutional players. If PPP maintains power, the plan allows nonprofit organizations to trade digital assets from the second quarter.

According to local news, the Korean People’s Power Party has vowed to abolish the “one exchange, one bank” policy, approve the Bitcoin Spot ETF in 2025, and to approve the Bitcoin Spot ETF in 2025. pic.twitter.com/7zywgfp4er

– Office area (@coinbureau) April 29, 2025

Bid on The PPP brings clarity and confidence to the market and proposes the establishment of a Virtual Assets Special Committee under the President’s Office.

This body will be supervised implementation of A new regulatory regime, including the Framework Act on the Promotion of Digital Assets. The proposed law will be introduced More clear Rules for exchange operations, asset lists, and transaction disclosures.

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PPP implementing Stablecoins regulatory systems

Rep. Choi Bo-Yoon pointed out that the PPP is aiming to implement a stubcoin regulatory system based on global standards, increasing transparency and investor protection.

The party’s platform reflects the recent deregulation trend in the United States, where former President Donald Trump advocated for rollbacks of debt broker rules. Cryptographic integration Towards a national financial strategy.

PPP presidential candidate Hong Joon-Pyo has embraced a similar stance, pledging to reduce regulatory barriers and expand the use of blockchain in public services.

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The ruling post-Korea party has pledged to approve the Spot Crypto ETF until the end of the year.