Cultural exports like K-Pop can be Trojan Horses for Asian stablecoin adoption | Opinion

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There’s a political and popular groundswell for stablecoins in Asia. Asian regulators are racing to catch up with the United States on stablecoins. Korea, Japan, and China are all discussing how their industries will benefit from stablecoins and how they should be regulated. 

Summary

• Stablecoins fit Asia’s DNA — from Hong Kong’s 1983 USD peg to today’s superapps, the region’s financial culture already mirrors “stablecoin logic,” making adoption a natural evolution.
• Remittances drive usage — Southeast Asia leads the world in web3 gaming wallets (15M+ monthly active), and expat remittances make stablecoins a faster, cheaper bridge between gameplay, wallets, and real-world value.
• Cultural exports meet stablecoins — South Korea is exploring a won-backed stablecoin that could power K-pop, K-beauty, and cross-border e-commerce, connecting creators directly with global buyers.
• Stablecoins are becoming cross-border conduits — not just money tools, but infrastructure for trade, culture, and economic resilience across the region.

Hundreds of millions of people in Asia transact every day across borders. They already use cashless superapps. They also play several crypto games and intuitively understand crypto wallets and remittances. 

Stablecoins matter for these consumers, already familiar with various fintech remittance products. They will continue to matter. They allow earnings to retain value, bypass broken local banking rails, and move seamlessly between games, wallets, and DeFi protocols. 

Stablecoins are growing as a proxy for remittances. Governments beware, early adopters seek free commerce across borders. Stablecoins are not a threat to sovereignty; they are an opportunity to bring the unbanked into the digital economy and sell cultural exports like K-Pop to the world.

Stablecoins were born in Asia

Stablecoins in Asia will supercharge this next stage of crypto’s mainstreaming. This is because stablecoins also fit in with Asian economic history. “Stablecoins” were born in Asia, and historically, stablecoin logic is already embedded in Asia’s monetary systems. The first USD stablecoin was created in 1983 when the Hong Kong dollar was pegged to the U.S. dollar. 

This ​​U.S. dollar peg has been a crucial element of Hong Kong’s economic stability, providing predictability for international trade and financial transactions, making Hong Kong a global financial epicenter. Like Hong Kong’s economic success story, stablecoins can make Asian nations trade powerhouses.

Southeast Asians already hold crypto wallets

Stablecoins are culturally aligned with remittances and will dominate peer-to-peer payments in the region. There is a direct correlation between the state of banking infrastructure and the need for stablecoins. Yet stablecoin adoption is not mainstream in Asia. Nevertheless, crypto-native users and early adopters have led the charge in China, Vietnam, South Korea, and the Philippines.

Southeast Asia is still the most active, mobile-native, play-to-earn–friendly region on the planet. 

In May 2025, Southeast Asia officially surpassed all other global regions in daily active web3 gamers — accounting for 36% of the world’s web3 gaming wallet activity, according to Chainalysis and Footprint Analytics data. Southeast Asians hold crypto wallets already. The top countries by share of web3 gaming wallets are: Vietnam with 12.8%; Philippines with 11.4%; Thailand with 7.3%; and Indonesia with 4.6%. 

These four countries now represent over 15 million monthly active wallets, with usage surging thanks to mobile-first games on affordable smartphones, and importantly, broad crypto familiarity via remittances. 

Stablecoins are the next natural evolution in emerging economies, sending remittances worldwide. Stablecoins are a critical bridge between digital gameplay and real-world value, paving the way for a more open and interoperable future for money transfers. It doesn’t need to be said that those expat communities sending money home will benefit from lower fees and greater speeds on stablecoin rails.

Stablecoins are cross-border cultural conduits 

South Korea’s government is also having a favorable parliamentary discussion about introducing a South Korean won-backed stablecoin, which I have witnessed firsthand.  Importantly, South Korea is the second-largest retail adopter of crypto.

This discourse includes how stablecoins can be used for South Korea’s cross-border cultural exports, like K-Pop music. The utility of stabecoins is being discussed that way right now in South Korea. This is because stablecoins, through faster international settlement, democratize access to international buyers. 

Andres Kim, LATAM expansion manager at Tether (USDT), when noting South Korea’s global cultural reach and rapidly advancing fintech infrastructure, argued that a South Korean won-backed stablecoin makes sense: 

A K-fashion designer in Seoul or a game artist in Busan can sell their products online, get paid in USDT via a wallet, and spend or swap that instantly — without a Stripe account, bank delays, and foreign exchange loss.  

Cultural exports, whether web3 games or pop music, will be bought by stablecoins, bridging Korea’s cultural export power and the existing wallets of millions across Asia and beyond.  Governments don’t overreach their regulations by limiting issuance providers and anti-competitive behavior. 

The sandboxes are here, don’t overreach

Asians are already cashless thanks to all-in-one super-apps LINE, Kakao, and WeChat. Yet, stablecoins are also a means of onchain, off-chain, and cross-border composability. South Korea’s government knows this, too. For example, it recently allowed travelers to South Korea, including K-culture enthusiasts and medical tourists, access to their crypto with ATMs in the country.

The catch is that local Koreans cannot use ATMs for regulatory reasons, just yet. 

It is part of Korea’s stablecoin sandbox. Yet, while crypto adoption is advancing unevenly across borders and regulatory frameworks are creating strange contradictions — in this case, foreign visitors can access crypto cash while locals cannot, it’s only a matter of time now for a widespread rollout. 

If local governments stay out of the way, Asia may leapfrog the West in stablecoin adoption. Asia’s existing fintech culture makes it ripe for stablecoin adoption, but overregulation is still risky to cross-border adoption.

Sangmin Seo

Dr. Sangmin Seo is chairman of the Kaia DLT Foundation. Seo is a blockchain pioneer who developed the Klaytn blockchain that would merge with Finschia and become the Kaia chain, currently ranked between the no.1 and no.4 L1 EVM chains in 2025 by DAU. Before the Klaytn and Finschia blockchains’ merger, Seo was the Representative Director of Klaytn Foundation, leading ecosystem expansion. He also worked as chief technology officer at GroundX, a blockchain subsidiary of the leading South Korean mobile messaging platform, Kakao. He holds a B.S. (computer science/engineering) and a Ph.D. (electrical engineering/computer science) from Seoul National University.