Kakao Group has partnered with stablecoin issuer Circle to explore payment infrastructure for won-backed stablecoins as South Korea prepares a broader regulatory framework for crypto assets. 

On Thursday, the companies announced that Kakao, Kakao Pay and Kakao Bank had signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Circle Internet Group. Under the agreement, the companies will explore ways to connect Circle’s blockchain and global payment infrastructure with Kakao’s consumer platforms and financial services.

The agreement highlights how major South Korean consumer and financial platforms are positioning themselves ahead of expected stablecoin legislation, even before the regulatory framework is finalized. 

Under the MOU, the companies plan to examine stablecoin payments, cross-border remittances, merchant settlement and connections between existing financial systems and blockchain networks. 

The companies will also consider support for tokenized financial services, but they did not disclose any products or launch timelines.

Cointelegraph reached out to Circle and Kakao Group but did not receive a response before publication. 

South Korea’s stablecoin framework 

South Korea has been working toward legislation governing won-backed stablecoins as policymakers seek to encourage digital payment innovation while addressing risks related to reserves, redemption and issuer oversight. 

The government has been preparing a bill that would establish requirements covering stablecoin issuance, collateral management and internal controls. Lawmakers have also introduced competing proposals as support has grown for won-pegged tokens aimed at reducing reliance on the US dollar. 

However, the regulatory process has stalled over disagreements about which institutions should be permitted to issue won-based stablecoins. 

The Bank of Korea, the country’s central bank, argued that banks should retain a majority stake in stablecoin issuers, while the Financial Services Commission warned that eligibility limits could restrict competition and innovation. 

In its economic growth strategy announced on July 14, the government listed advancing the Digital Asset Basic Act among its priorities for the second half of 2026. 

Related: South Korean regulator misses stablecoin bill deadline: What’s next?

Meanwhile, companies and financial institutions have begun testing the technology in South Korea. In April, internet bank Kbank partnered with Ripple to test blockchain-based remittances. 

In May, KB Financial Group completed a pilot covering stablecoin issuance, offline merchant payments and cross-border remittances through the Kaia blockchain. The group said it was preparing to introduce stablecoin services once the regulations take effect. 

Magazine: Why Australia’s $17B crypto opportunity depends on regulation

Coinbase has expanded its Singapore operations with a new office and announced plans to increase its local workforce by about one-third to around 200 employees by the end of 2026.

According to The Business Times, Nasdaq-listed crypto exchange Coinbase officially opened its new Singapore office at One Raffles Quay on July 22 and plans to grow its local headcount from about 150 employees to around 200 over the next 18 months. 

The hiring drive will focus primarily on engineering, customer service, relationship management, and institutional sales, Singapore country director Hassan Ahmed said in an interview with the publication.

The expansion comes as Coinbase continues to strengthen its presence in one of Asia’s most established digital asset markets. Speaking to The Business Times, Ahmed described Singapore as “one of the world’s most trusted financial hubs and one of Coinbase’s fastest-growing international markets.”

“This new office reflects our long-term confidence in Singapore as a strategic hub for innovation, talent, and responsible growth across the Asia Pacific, giving us the resources to work more closely with local authorities, invest in talent, and scale partnerships,” Ahmed said.

The move also stands in contrast to Coinbase’s workforce reductions announced earlier this year. On May 5, the company said it would reduce its global staff by about 14% as part of a cost management effort driven by market volatility and increasing use of artificial intelligence. At the time, Coinbase said it would reorganize teams around AI capabilities while reducing management layers.

Despite those global cuts, Ahmed told The Business Times that Coinbase sees strong long-term opportunities for cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in Singapore and across Asia, supporting the company’s decision to continue hiring in the country.

Singapore remains central to Coinbase’s Asia strategy

Ahmed attributed Coinbase’s continued investment to Singapore’s regulatory clarity and business environment, which he said helped the country establish itself as an early digital asset hub.

According to him, Singapore was “much ahead of other jurisdictions and hubs that were also vying to be digital asset hubs” when the regulatory framework for digital assets was being developed. He also cited the country’s business-friendly operating environment, favorable tax structure, and access to capital as additional reasons behind Coinbase’s expansion.

Coinbase’s relationship with Singapore’s regulators has developed over several years. The company first received a temporary exemption from licensing requirements in March 2020 before obtaining an in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in October 2022.

Subsequently, in October 2023, Coinbase secured a full Major Payment Institution license under Singapore’s Payment Services Act, allowing the exchange to operate as a fully licensed digital payment token service provider in the country.

At the time, Coinbase identified Singapore among six priority international markets for its expansion strategy, alongside the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Brazil. The company also pointed to Singapore’s growing crypto adoption, noting that the country had become one of the world’s leading digital asset markets.

Investment in Singapore continued after the licensing milestone. In November 2024, Coinbase launched an Engineering Hub in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board to support blockchain infrastructure development and local engineering talent. The company said the initiative would help developers build applications for the on-chain economy while strengthening Singapore’s position as a regional technology center.

Coinbase also expanded local payment infrastructure through support for the Singapore dollar-backed stablecoin XSGD in partnership with StraitsX and Coinbase Business, allowing companies to access stablecoin-based payment services.

Institutional demand and tokenization gain momentum

Looking at market demand, Ahmed told The Business Times that accredited and institutional investors have continued increasing their interest in both digital assets and blockchain technology.

He also said tokenization has attracted considerably more attention as governments and regulators introduce frameworks covering digital assets.

As examples, Ahmed pointed to the U.S. GENIUS Act, the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, Hong Kong’s stablecoin ordinance, and Singapore’s own tokenized Treasury bills pilot alongside its stablecoin regulatory framework.

According to Ahmed, market participants increasingly expect financial markets to operate continuously rather than within traditional business hours.

“Consumers and traders now have an expectation of 24/7 trading markets, and they want to apply this technology to tokenize assets to make them 24/7,” he said. “They also want to use stablecoins to do instant settlement.”

His comments come as tokenized real-world assets and regulated stablecoins continue receiving attention from financial institutions across multiple jurisdictions, with several governments introducing dedicated legal frameworks over the past year.

AI becomes another investment priority

Beyond hiring and digital assets, Coinbase is also exploring how artificial intelligence can be integrated with blockchain technology.

Ahmed told The Business Times that one area under evaluation involves equipping AI agents with stablecoin wallets so they can perform transactions while maintaining transparent on-chain records of their activity. He added that blockchain could provide an auditable record of actions taken by AI systems.

The company is also introducing AI across its internal operations, particularly within engineering teams. Ahmed emphasized, however, that people would continue overseeing important decisions rather than handing complete control to automated systems.

“Digital assets and AI are effectively colliding,” Ahmed said. “We are very excited about the potential of AI.”

Coinbase is pursuing its Singapore hiring plans even as its shares have faced fresh volatility in the United States. On July 22, Coinbase shares dropped roughly 4% after Polymarket reduced the odds of the CLARITY Act passing before the end of 2026 amid disagreements over proposed ethics provisions.

Korbit, South Korea’s first homegrown crypto exchange founded in 2013, now has a new home and its a traditional finance behemoth.

The exchange announced Thursday that it is now part of the Mirae Asset Group family, which reportedly had an AUM of $1 trillion as of May.

The acquiring entity is Mirae Asset Consulting, an affiliate of Mirae Asset Group, which has acquired Korbit’s shares through mandated regulatory reporting procedures, becoming the largest shareholder. The announcement clarified that there are no changes to Korbit Co., Ltd., the corporation that operates Korbit.

The affiliate firm also looks after the group’s hotels and golf course businesses and now reportedly holds a 97.15% stake in Korbit.

For the exchange users, the acquisition by the Mirae affiliate brings no immediate disruption. The exchange said that all services, such as login, trading, deposits and withdrawals, will continue without interruption. User deposits and virtual assets will continue to be held separately from company assets, consistent with South Korea’s Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users. Personal data processing also remains unchanged and requires no action from users.

Swiss cantonal bank BancaStato has gone live with regulated cryptocurrency trading through a partnership with digital-asset banking firm Sygnum, using the banks’ existing technology stack. The launch, announced this week to Cointelegraph, brings crypto buy, sell, and holding services to BancaStato clients via their current web and mobile banking apps.

BancaStato’s customers can access four crypto assets—Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Solana (SOL)—directly in their banking interface. The integration is built on Sygnum’s B2B banking platform and connected into Avaloq’s core and digital banking software, aiming to reduce operational duplication for the bank.

Key takeaways

• BancaStato is now offering regulated crypto trading and custody through its existing web and mobile banking channels.
• The service is powered by Sygnum’s B2B platform, integrated into Avaloq banking software rather than requiring a standalone crypto system.
• Clients can trade and hold BTC, ETH, LTC, and SOL through BancaStato’s apps.
• Sygnum says its approach is designed to shorten the timeline for banks to move from planning to live crypto offerings.
• BancaStato joins a growing network of financial institutions already using Sygnum’s B2B infrastructure.

Crypto access embedded in BancaStato banking apps

According to BancaStato’s announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the cantonal bank for the Italian-speaking Ticino region has joined Sygnum’s business-to-business platform to provide regulated digital-asset services.

The practical change for customers is that crypto functionality is routed through the bank’s familiar user experience. BancaStato clients can buy, sell, and hold the supported assets through existing web and mobile banking applications, rather than using a separate crypto venue.

Sygnum and its technology partners also highlighted that the system is designed to integrate into BancaStato’s current banking operations. In particular, Sygnum’s trading and custody functions are connected through Avaloq’s platform, allowing the bank to offer crypto without adopting an entirely independent infrastructure stack.

How the Avaloq–Sygnum setup is intended to work

The integration links Sygnum’s application programming interface (API) to Avaloq, which develops the core banking and digital banking software used by many financial institutions. The companies said this approach connects Sygnum directly to Avaloq’s banking environment.

They also claim the design can remove the need for a separate order management system for crypto activity. If accurate in deployment, that matters for operational efficiency: order management is often one of the more complex layers in moving from “decision” to a production-grade trading and custody service. Streamlining those components can reduce implementation friction and ongoing maintenance requirements.

Fritz Jost, Sygnum’s chief B2B officer, told Cointelegraph that BancaStato is the first bank using Avaloq’s software-as-a-service model to enable customers to buy, hold, and sell crypto assets via the bank’s e-banking platforms using Sygnum’s API. Jost described the rollout as a milestone for the maturity and scalability of regulated digital-asset infrastructure.

Sygnum’s expanding European banking partnerships

BancaStato is not an isolated example of European banks using the Sygnum model. Sygnum says it has more than 25 financial institutions using its B2B platform to deliver regulated digital-asset services. In addition to BancaStato, Sygnum’s banking partners cited include Societe Generale-FORGE, PostFinance, and VZ Depotbank.

This kind of partnership structure is built around letting banks reuse a licensed and operational infrastructure layer—while banks retain responsibility for their own customer-facing regulatory decisions and arrangements.

Jost told Cointelegraph that partner banks remain responsible for their regulatory frameworks, while Sygnum provides elements including licensing, custody, and trading infrastructure. He argued that this separation is what can allow banks to move from internal planning to a live offering “in months rather than years,” reflecting the time savings compared with building crypto capabilities and obtaining approvals independently.

MiCA licensing and the post-transition ramp

The BancaStato launch arrives amid a broader shift in Europe’s crypto regulatory environment. In late June, Sygnum announced that its Liechtenstein-based subsidiary, Sygnum Europe AG, received a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) license under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework from Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA).

Sygnum said the MiCA license helps enable European partner banks to “plug into” standardized bank-to-bank infrastructure without facing a multi-year process of creating and licensing their own crypto operations. As described by Jost, the licensing status supports the ability to deliver regulated services through established channels rather than starting from scratch.

The MiCA license also came shortly before the end of the transitional period for the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation on July 1, according to Cointelegraph coverage of the transition timeline. With the transitional phase concluded, regulated crypto services in Europe have more defined compliance expectations, making it more important for institutions to have a clear operational model for custody and trading.

For investors, traders, and other market participants, these bank integrations can influence the “on-ramps” available to traditional finance customers. Even when token support is initially limited, extending regulated access through mainstream banking interfaces can broaden participation and reduce reliance on separate crypto exchanges for entry-level activities.

BancaStato’s next step will likely be whether it expands beyond its initial set of four supported assets, and how quickly other Avaloq-using institutions follow the same API-based approach. Readers should also watch for future announcements on additional token support and for how partner banks refine their operational processes as MiCA compliance requirements fully settle into day-to-day business.