KRW1 Stablecoin Spreads Wings on Visa Cards Amid Pending Legislation

South Korea's KRW1 stablecoin has made its way onto Visa cards, allowing users to spend it at over 175 million merchant locations worldwide. The stablecoin is pegged 1:1 to South Korean won held in escrow at Woori Bank and operates on the Avalanche blockchain.

The KRW1 stablecoin was launched by BDACS, a Busan-based digital asset custodian, despite the country's Digital Asset Basic Act being still pending. The act is meant to govern won-denominated stablecoins, but it has not been passed yet.

Rain, a payments firm, has added KRW1 to its card network, making it spendable at Visa merchants worldwide. This allows users to make payments without converting their won to dollars or using bank wires, which can be cumbersome and subject to capital controls.

BDACS says it is not stopping at Avalanche and has already expanded KRW1 to Polygon and adopted LayerZero for cross-chain transfers. The company's ambition is bigger than one card partnership, with reported interest in linking up with Circle's infrastructure.