Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute jointly published a policy report in South Korea on July 29, recommending that stablecoin issuance rules be carved out of the broader “Digital Asset Basic Act” (디지털자산기본법) legislative package and implemented in phases first. The report offers three concrete recommendations: expand regulatory flexibility for stablecoin issuers, publish interim guidance (잠정 가이던스) on licensing (인가) standards, and put a stablecoin regulatory framework in place before the Basic Act is finalized. The report draws on conclusions from a June 23 seminar attended by Korean National Assembly members, legal experts, and industry representatives; the story was first reported by Cointelegraph and relayed in Tokenpost’s Korean-language coverage. The core conflict is clear: disagreement over who can issue stablecoins — banks, non-bank payment institutions, or licensed crypto firms — has dragged out the legislative debate, leaving both licensing standards and corporate preparations in limbo.
Editorial take: what this means for the card in your wallet
The short version first: this news will not change the availability of any USDT virtual card within the next 90 days, including our editorially selected MPCard Asia Elite. The reason is that this report addresses issuance-side rules for KRW stablecoins, not usage-side restrictions on USDT as an already-issued asset. The flow you rely on — topping up with ₮ and spending through Visa/Mastercard rails — falls outside this report’s scope.
That said, medium-term implications exist, and they split into two categories:
Category one: users primarily based in South Korea. If you currently rely on Asia-Pacific card lines (MPCard review’s Asia Elite variant, Bybit Card, OKX Card) for local merchant spending in Korea and overseas subscription payments, no action is needed right now. Once a KRW stablecoin licensing framework is in place, exchanges and payment institutions will prioritize building direct “KRW stablecoin ↔ local bank” on-ramps — and that path’s fee structure and KYC depth will differ noticeably from today’s ₮ top-up path. At that point you’ll want to redo the math rather than assume your current card remains the best option by default. We maintain this comparison on our best options for Korean users page.
Category two: users treating South Korea as a target market for card issuer expansion. With issuance-side rules undefined, issuers won’t risk deploying local BINs or local settlement entities in Korea. That’s also why nearly all USDT cards currently serving Korea run on offshore BINs — the three-way alignment of Asia-Pacific account + Asia-Pacific IP + Asia-Pacific card BIN relies on licensed structures out of Singapore/Hong Kong, not a Korean local license. That arrangement won’t change before interim guidance is issued.
Expected timeline: within 7 days, no product-level changes; within 30 days, possible verbal statements from the FSC or legislative progress updates; within 90 days, if the “phase-in first” approach is adopted, the most likely form is an FSC administrative guideline rather than a statutory amendment — a signal for issuers, but still zero action for cardholders.
Historical parallel: this isn’t the first “unbundle and go first”
South Korea has precedent for this. The Virtual Asset User Protection Act (가상자산이용자보호법), passed in 2023 and effective July 19, 2024, was a classic two-phase law: phase one addressed only user asset protection and prohibition of unfair trading, pushing the hard issues — issuance, listing, stablecoins, cross-border activity — into “phase two legislation,” which is exactly the Digital Asset Basic Act now stuck in gridlock. The relevant provisions can be searched at the Korea National Law Information Center. Similarity: both cases chose to move on what could be agreed upon because the disagreement was too large to res