South Korean Authorities Exclude Stablecoins From Corporate Crypto Investments – Details

bitcoinistPublicado em 2026-03-08Última atualização em 2026-03-08

Resumo

South Korean financial regulators, led by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), are preparing to exclude stablecoins like USDT and USDC from the list of cryptocurrencies that publicly listed companies will be allowed to invest in. This decision is based on the country’s Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, which does not recognize stablecoins as legal external payment instruments. Allowing corporate investment in such assets could enable firms to bypass foreign exchange controls by making overseas payments directly via blockchain. The new guidelines will initially permit investments only in the top 20 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market cap, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, with exposure potentially capped at 5% of a company’s capital. This marks a shift from South Korea’s earlier restrictive stance on corporate crypto trading, reflecting a gradual reopening of the market to institutional participants under tighter oversight.

South Korean authorities are reportedly moving to exclude stablecoins from an incoming framework that will allow listed companies to invest in cryptocurrencies. The decision is reportedly tied to existing foreign exchange laws, but reflects a cautious approach in permitting institutional exposure to the digital asset market.

South Korea’s FSC Leaves Stablecoins Out of Corporate Options

According to a report by local media, Herald Economy, South Korea’s financial regulators are leaning toward omitting US dollar–pegged stablecoins such as USDC and USDT from the list of digital assets that corporations will be allowed to hold once the guidelines take effect.

The regulatory pathway being designed by the nation’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is aimed at allowing publicly listed companies to invest in cryptocurrencies. However, regulators believe that including stablecoins in the approved investment list would conflict with the existing legal framework over cross-border payments.

For context, stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to a fiat currency, most commonly the US dollar. Tokens such as USDT and USDC typically maintain a 1:1 value with the dollar and are widely used for trading, settlements, and cross-border payments due to non-existent volatility compared with traditional cryptocurrencies.

However, South Korean regulators argue that these tokens are currently not recognized within the country’s Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, a law enacted in 1998 and implemented in 1999 to regulate currency flows and international payments. The legislation requires cross-border transactions to pass through designated foreign exchange banks and does not recognize stablecoins as legitimate external payment instruments.

Therefore, allowing companies to invest in stablecoins could potentially enable firms to bypass the country’s foreign exchange control system by conducting overseas payments directly through blockchain networks. Notably, South Korean corporations involved in international trade have expressed hope for stablecoin inclusion to hedge exchange-rate volatility and facilitate near-instant settlements. Nevertheless, the SFC appears inclined to maintain a conservative stance.

Corporate Crypto Access Expands, But With Limits

The proposed guidelines by the FSC will initially permit investments only in the top 20 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, including assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Meanwhile, corporate exposure would potentially be capped within 5% of a company’s own capital, thus helping mitigate financial risks.

The move is part of a broader shift in South Korea’s digital asset policy. In 2017, authorities imposed strict restrictions on corporate participation in crypto trading amid concerns about speculation and money laundering. Nearly nine years later, regulators are gradually reopening the market to institutional investors under stricter oversight.

Meanwhile, the Asian country continues to refine its broader crypto regulatory framework. Bitcoinist recently reported that the FSC and the ruling party agreed to cap major shareholder stakes in domestic crypto exchanges to 20% in a bid battle governance risk and founder control.

Total crypto market cap valued at $2.27 trillion on the daily chart | Source: TOTAL chart on Tradingview.com

Perguntas relacionadas

QWhy are South Korean authorities excluding stablecoins from the list of approved corporate crypto investments?

ABecause stablecoins are not recognized as legitimate external payment instruments under South Korea's Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, and allowing corporate investment could enable firms to bypass the country's foreign exchange control system.

QWhich specific stablecoins are mentioned as being excluded from the corporate investment framework?

AUSDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin) are the specific dollar-pegged stablecoins mentioned.

QWhat is the primary reason cited by regulators for their cautious stance on stablecoins?

AThe primary reason is the conflict with existing foreign exchange laws, as stablecoins are not recognized within the country's Foreign Exchange Transactions Act which regulates cross-border payments.

QWhat are the proposed limits for corporate cryptocurrency investments under the new FSC guidelines?

AInvestments will initially be permitted only in the top 20 non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies by market cap, and corporate exposure will potentially be capped within 5% of a company's own capital.

QHow have South Korean corporations involved in international trade reacted to the exclusion of stablecoins?

AThey had expressed hope for stablecoin inclusion to hedge against exchange-rate volatility and facilitate near-instant settlements for international trade.

Leituras Relacionadas

Silicon Valley 'Startup Guru' Steve Hoffman: Web3 + AI Could Be a Trap

Silicon Valley investor and "Godfather of Startups" Steve Hoffman warns that combining Web3 with AI is likely a trap, not a promising venture. In an interview, Hoffman argues that while AI is a foundational technology touching all industries, Web3 adds complexity, friction, and regulatory risk without solving mainstream consumer or business needs. He advises founders to focus on deep, specialized applications where startups can out-iterate giants, rather than on generic features easily replicated by large tech companies. Hoffman observes that Silicon Valley will lead foundational AI research, while China excels at rapid, large-scale application and commercialization, particularly in robotics. He stresses that AI-driven autonomous agents capable of collaborative, multi-step tasks are 2-4 years away, which will cause significant job displacement. The solution is not to slow AI but to redesign business models around human-AI collaboration and reform social systems like education and retraining. For startups, Hoffman recommends focusing on vertical, expertise-heavy domains to build defensibility. He sees major opportunities in AI fraud detection and cybersecurity. Key founder mindsets include systemic thinking over feature-focus, relentless customer centricity, building adaptive teams, and deeply understanding AI's capabilities and limits. Hoffman is also leading a non-profit initiative to establish university centers aimed at training future leaders in responsible, human-value-aligned AI innovation.

marsbitHá 3m

Silicon Valley 'Startup Guru' Steve Hoffman: Web3 + AI Could Be a Trap

marsbitHá 3m

Token Inefficient, Economy Tokenless

The article "Tokens Aren't Economical, Economics Aren't Tokenized" analyzes a pivotal shift in the AI industry from a technology-driven narrative to one dominated by capital efficiency. It highlights two concurrent trends: a severe capital shortage due to the exorbitant and recurring costs of compute (e.g., OpenAI's high burn rate) and a wave of corporate spin-offs where major tech companies are separating their AI units (like Kuaishou's Kling and Baidu's Kunlunxin). The core argument is that AI's "anti-internet" business model, where user growth increases costs rather than profits, has created a disconnect between high valuations and actual cash flow. Spin-offs address this by allowing AI assets to be valued independently. Within a parent company, they are seen as cost centers, but as standalone entities, they are priced based on their growth potential and scarcity in the primary market, leading to massive valuation premiums (e.g., Kling's estimated value tripling post-spin-off). The industry is at an inflection point, moving from "model worship" to "value realization." The competition is evolving from a pure compute (GPU) race to a broader focus on systemic efficiency and full-stack engineering (involving CPUs and orchestration) to achieve viable commercialization. The year 2026 is framed as a critical moment where the industry must definitively answer how to economically translate AI capability into tangible business value, reshaping the sector's future power structure.

marsbitHá 8m

Token Inefficient, Economy Tokenless

marsbitHá 8m

Crossing the 'Memory Wall': The Wafer-Level Revolution and Computing Power Routes in the AI Inference Era

In 2026, a historic shift occurred in AI as major cloud providers' inference spending surpassed training spending for the first time, signaling a move from "building large models" to "using large models." This shifts the core challenge from computing power to the "memory wall"—the bottleneck of data movement (model weights, activations, KV Cache) between external DRAM and processors, where energy and latency from data transfer far exceed computation itself. Companies like Nvidia face GPU idle time due to bandwidth limits. In contrast, Cerebras Systems adopts a radical "wafer-scale" approach with its Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE). Instead of cutting a silicon wafer into many chips, Cerebras uses almost the entire wafer as one massive chip (WSE-3). This design provides 44GB of on-chip SRAM, delivering memory bandwidth thousands of times higher than traditional HBM (e.g., 21 PB/s vs. Nvidia B200). For LLM inference, weights are streamed layer-by-layer from external MemoryX storage to the chip, avoiding HBM bottlenecks. This results in token generation speeds 1.5–5 times faster than Nvidia's B200 in some models and significant advantages in first-token latency and long-context tasks. Additionally, Cerebras's architecture offers much lower interconnect power consumption (0.15 pJ/bit vs. GPU's ~10 pJ/bit). However, Cerebras faces challenges: SRAM scaling has slowed with advanced nodes, limiting future capacity gains; the chip requires specialized liquid cooling and custom software stacks; and its external I/O bandwidth (150 GB/s) is low compared to NVLink, hindering multi-system scaling for very large models. Competition is intensifying. Major players are pursuing three paths: 1) Developing proprietary inference ASICs (e.g., Google TPU, Microsoft Maia), 2) Leveraging advanced packaging (e.g., TSMC's SoW) to democratize wafer-scale-like integration, potentially eroding Cerebras's process advantage within a few years, and 3) Exploring optical interconnects for ultimate bandwidth. Commercially, Cerebras is transitioning from a hardware vendor to a service provider, facing the immense challenge of building high-power, specialized data centers to meet large contracts (e.g., 250MW/year from 2026–2028). In conclusion, the AI inference era presents a fundamental architectural trade-off. Cerebras opts for extreme physical optimization for low-latency, single-task performance, while Nvidia prioritizes versatility and massive cluster throughput. The path forward remains uncertain, with technology and business models still evolving in the race toward advanced AI.

marsbitHá 14m

Crossing the 'Memory Wall': The Wafer-Level Revolution and Computing Power Routes in the AI Inference Era

marsbitHá 14m

Has Bitcoin's 'Rebound Ended', Officially Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?

**Title: Has Bitcoin's Rebound Ended, Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?** **Summary:** Bitcoin's price has declined by 13% this week, signaling a potential return to late-stage bear market conditions. The price fell to around $67k, positioned between the Realized Price and Realized Cap Weighted Average. For the first time since early 2022, the Short-Term Holder cost basis has dropped below this key average, confirming a hallmark of late-cycle bear markets. Profitability metrics have collapsed sharply. The 7-day average of the Realized Profit/Loss ratio plummeted from a local high of 3.16 to 0.29, mirroring the February panic sell-off. Critically, the 90-day average never breached the threshold of 2, indicating the recent rally to $82k was a bear market bounce, not a structural shift. Realized losses surged to $1.35 billion daily, with $770 million coming from Long-Term Holders selling at a loss. This accelerating redistribution of supply from weak to strong hands is a necessary but ongoing process for a market bottom. The rally stalled almost precisely at the aggregate cost basis (~$83k) of US spot Bitcoin ETF investors, turning that level into strong resistance and leaving the average ETF holder underwater again. Spot market flows have turned decisively negative, showing sellers are dominating order books despite the price drop. While a significant futures long liquidation event cleared over $400 million in leverage, providing a potential reset, sustained spot demand is yet to materialize. Options markets continue to price in higher future volatility (Implied Volatility) than recent price action (Realized Volatility) has shown, with a persistent skew towards put options, indicating ongoing demand for downside protection. In conclusion, multiple metrics point to a fragile market structure. Resistance at the ETF cost basis, accelerating realized losses, dominant spot selling, and cautious options pricing all suggest the bear market trend persists. A sustainable recovery likely requires a resurgence of spot demand, ETF holders returning to profit, and a clear reduction in selling pressure.

marsbitHá 14m

Has Bitcoin's 'Rebound Ended', Officially Entering the Late Bear Market Phase?

marsbitHá 14m

TechFlow Intelligence Agency: Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development While Preparing for Trillion-Dollar IPO; SpaceX IPO Roadshow Heats Up, But S&P 500 Rejects Fast-Track Inclusion

In today's TechFlow Intelligence Briefing, several major tech stories highlight a growing theme of trust and credibility gaps across AI, crypto, and finance. AI company Anthropic has publicly called for a global pause in AI development, citing risks from Claude's "recursive self-improvement." Ironically, this coincides with reports the company is preparing for a massive IPO targeting a near $1 trillion valuation. This perceived hypocrisy, coupled with widespread user complaints about Claude's declining performance, is sparking debate over whether the safety warning is genuine or a competitive tactic. Meanwhile, in a substantive security move, Anthropic open-sourced a framework for AI-powered vulnerability discovery. In the crypto market, Bitcoin's price drop below $61,000 triggered over $1.16 billion in liquidations, flipping the market into a state where more BTC is held at a loss than at a profit, a historical bearish signal. On the corporate front, SpaceX's highly anticipated IPO is generating immense Wall Street excitement, with Goldman Sachs projecting 100x revenue growth by 2030. However, the S&P 500 has refused to fast-track the company's inclusion post-IPO, potentially limiting immediate institutional demand. Separately, ByteDance's AI app Doubao lost over 6 million monthly active users after introducing a subscription model, highlighting the challenges of AI monetization. Other notable developments include Nvidia certifying HBM4 memory from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron; Cloudflare's acquisition of front-end tooling company VoidZero; and its CEO warning that bot traffic now exceeds human traffic online. The underlying narrative connects these events: a trust crisis. From AI firms' contradictory actions and crypto volatility to the clash between SpaceX's hyped narrative and institutional rules, a pattern is emerging where stated intentions and actual practices are increasingly misaligned.

marsbitHá 29m

TechFlow Intelligence Agency: Anthropic Calls for Global Pause in AI Development While Preparing for Trillion-Dollar IPO; SpaceX IPO Roadshow Heats Up, But S&P 500 Rejects Fast-Track Inclusion

marsbitHá 29m

Trading

Spot
Futuros
活动图片

Categorias popularesright-arrow

Etiquetas Popularesright-arrow