EURC Brings Direct Euro Trading to South Korea on Upbit
Circle's EURC stablecoin has landed on Upbit, South Korea's dominant digital asset exchange. The EURC/KRW market opened at 5:00 a.m. UTC on August 28, allowing traders to convert Korean won into euros directly, eliminating the need for routing through dollars first.
This direct conversion cuts out a step that typically incurs both time and fees. EURC is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, a French electronic money institution, and is backed 1:1 by euro reserves held at regulated institutions inside the European Economic Area.
EURC was designed to meet the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, or MiCA, which sets out reserve, disclosure, and operational requirements for stablecoin issuers. The stablecoin circulates across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar, with a circulation exceeding €400 million as of mid-August.
The EURC/BTC pair adds another dimension to the market, giving sophisticated traders an additional arbitrage surface when European and Korean Bitcoin prices diverge. This is unusual in South Korea, where BTC has historically traded at a premium to global prices, known as the kimchi premium.