TokenSquare, a Korean AI payment infrastructure company, has launched KRWQ, a Korean won-denominated stablecoin infrastructure. $BSV Partnership with Switzerland-based blockchain technology $BSV Association. The system is designed for real-time payments, micropayments and corporate payments using digital won-based rails.
According to TokenPost, the project follows a memorandum of understanding signed in June 2025, followed by several months of technology validation, node design work, and commercialization planning.
KRWQ is built on $BSV‘s Teranode architecture has demonstrated the ability to process more than 1 million transactions per second in an AWS test environment, the project said.
According to a report by TokenPost, TokenSquare CEO Oh Eun-jung said that KRWQ is intended to serve as a won-based infrastructure for large-scale real-time payment processing in South Korea. The company also sees potential use cases in AI payments, micropayments, corporate payments, and broader digital commerce, rather than positioning KRWQ as a standalone crypto asset.
One KRWQ for payments and one for transactions
KRWQ is joining a market where multiple projects are trying to bring the Korean Won to blockchain rails.
One of the more confusing aspects is that another project developed by IQ and Frax Finance, also known as KRWQ, is already listed on EDX Markets. According to EDX Markets, this version is focused on institutional trading and is the first non-USD stablecoin that can be traded in both spot and perpetual futures markets on the platform.
This version is designed for traders seeking exposure to Korean Won liquidity, including hedging activities related to the offshore non-deliverable forward (NDF) market, which is over $100 billion in size.
According to TRADE News, executives involved with the EDX-listed KRWQ describe it as a tool for regulated trading and hedging of Korean won exposure in both the spot and derivatives markets. EDX Markets is also positioning this listing as part of a broader push to expand institutional access to non-US dollar digital assets in regulated markets.
TokenSquare’s version takes a completely different direction. Rather than focusing on transactions, it targets the day-to-day payment infrastructure within South Korea. According to TokenPost, the company has a custody agreement with Korea Digital Asset (KODA) and has compliance tools built into its system, including KYC/AML enforcement, address management, and funds limit features.
South Korean regulators have not decided who will manage the won stablecoin
South Korea’s Digital Asset Basic Act, a proposed framework to regulate the issuance of stablecoins, remains stuck in a legislative deadlock.
Opinion among regulators remains divided, according to an article in The Korea Times by Andrei Grachev, managing partner of DWF Labs. The Bank of Korea supports a model that requires banks to hold a majority stake in stablecoin issuers, while the Financial Services Commission (FSC) is considering a more flexible approach similar to Europe’s MiCA framework.
Despite the uncertainty, market activity has already begun.
According to E-Daily, Tiger Research CEO Kim Gyu-jin told a parliamentary seminar in April that offshore KRWQ trading could reach about 1 billion won (about $700,000) per day. This is mainly due to hedging of exposure to Korean stocks by foreign investors.
According to the Korea Times, South Korea has an estimated 18 million crypto investors, making it one of the countries with the highest participation rate in the world. One of the enduring features of the market is the so-called “kimchi premium.” At this premium, crypto assets often trade at higher prices domestically than on global exchanges, a sign of strong domestic demand for exposure to digital currencies.
$BSVTeranode makes payment proposal to TokenSquare
The core of KRWQ is $BSVThe Teranode architecture is designed to prioritize high transaction throughput and low-cost payments at scale.
Simply put, this design focuses on quickly and efficiently executing high-volume transactions rather than complex smart contract applications. This is in contrast to networks like Ethereum, which is built around programmable smart contracts, and Solana, which also focuses on speed but uses a different architecture for scaling.
$BSV Proponents argue that this type of structure is well-suited to real-world payment systems, particularly micropayments, machine-to-machine transactions, and real-time payment flows, which could become more important in an AI-driven economy.
That said, many of these performance claims have been made primarily within controlled or test environments, and large-scale national deployment has yet to be proven.
Global non-USD stablecoin initiatives
While stablecoins pegged to the US dollar still dominate global liquidity, non-US dollar stablecoins are also gradually expanding as countries explore digital payment systems in their local currencies.
What this means for global payments
The launch of KRWQ highlights broader changes in the stablecoin market. Currencies are starting to move from just trading pairs to full payment infrastructures.
Adoption of systems like KRWQ could reduce reliance on traditional bank rails, reduce settlement times, and enable new forms of programmable payments, including automated transactions between machines and AI systems.
However, the direction is still unclear. Competing models, from stablecoins focused on institutional trading to domestic payments infrastructure, could ultimately fragment liquidity between different systems rather than unifying it.
In South Korea, the outcome will largely depend on how lawmakers pass the Digital Asset Basic Law. The decision is likely to determine whether won-based stablecoins become instruments tightly controlled by banks or evolve into a broader digital payments infrastructure integrated with global cryptocurrency markets.
