BDACS KRW1 (KRW1) stablecoin status and tracking
KRW1 is BDACS's 1:1 won stablecoin, on-chain since July 2026 with Woori Bank escrow; full commercial issuance awaits Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act.
Phase
Current launch phase
Launched
Public on-chain issuance
Tracking review
Pharos decision due
Since launch
Announced Sep 2025
Live surfaces
Awaiting admissible dataMissing lane: supply coverage and scope review. DefiLlama prices KRW1 but counts only the Ethereum deployment (partial supply coverage), and the float is below the $5M review threshold.Won Stablecoin Awaiting the Digital Asset Basic Act
KRW1 is BDACS's won stablecoin, which Pharos still tracks as pre-launch: the September 2025 Avalanche proof of concept put won reserves in escrow at Woori Bank, and commercial issuance awaits Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act. September 2026 widened the gap between distribution and law. BDACS partnered with Rain to make KRW1 spendable across Visa's card network, joined Circle's Arc mainnet at launch as the only won stablecoin, and selected Fireblocks for institutional custody. On September 16 the Seoul Economic Daily reported that BDACS's 2026 whitepaper describes KRW1 as a commercial product already in operation under its existing virtual-asset-service-provider filing, a reading critics said conflates a filing with issuer status; BDACS said it would review the wording. The Act's September public hearing was then cancelled over a delayed government bill. In October Pharos re-pointed its registry to the July 2026 production contracts on Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc named in BDACS's September accountant reserve report, dropping the BNB Chain, Polygon and Plume proof-of-concept rows. Tracked supply remains at proof-of-concept scale, and commercial issuance still waits on the Digital Asset Basic Act.
· AI summary · drafted by claude-opus-5-5 · facts as of 2026-10-19
AI policy
KRW1 Launch path
Launched Jul 10, 2026, awaiting admissible data; 23 milestones logged since Sep 2025.
Target history (1)
- 2026retired Oct 25, 2026
Launch status narrative
Production KRW1 contracts on Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc have issued tokens on-chain since the first Ethereum mint on July 10 2026, following the September 2025 proof of concept, while BDACS ties full commercial issuance to Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act. BDACS is South Korea's regulated digital-asset custodian; Woori Bank holds the won reserves and participated directly in the PoC. Initial deployment on Avalanche (cited by KISA for reliability in public-sector use); KRW1 expanded to Polygon in December 2025 for broader payments, remittances, and enterprise reach. October 2025 MoU with Circle positions KRW1 for deployment on Arc (Circle's new Layer 1), where it joins national stablecoin issuers from Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines. February 2026 Plume partnership positions KRW1 as Korean institutional settlement rail for tokenized RWA. May 2026 Aptos Foundation partnership brings KRW1 to its first non-EVM chain, leveraging Aptos's payment infrastructure for cross-border remittances and RWA tokenisation. A February 2026 MoU with Com2uS Holdings targets KRW1-based payment infrastructure on the XPLA/CONX chain. KRW1 is live on Aptos with 30M tokens per rwa.xyz, which reported 141.8M KRW1 (about $97K) across Polygon, Aptos, Plume, Ethereum, and BNB Chain with 33 holders on September 13 2026. On September 7 2026 BDACS adopted LayerZero's OFT standard to unify that supply across chains, and on September 8 agreed card-payment rails with XBITU. Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act (the gate for commercial launch) was excluded from the National Assembly's pre-recess agenda on May 12 2026; the first public hearing planned for late September was effectively cancelled on September 22 2026 after the government bill was delayed, with the FSC targeting a November subcommittee and year-end passage uncertain. September 2026 brought a dense partnership run (Rain/Visa card rails, Arc mainnet at launch, Fireblocks custody) alongside scrutiny of the 2026 whitepaper's claim that KRW1 is a commercial product in operation, which BDACS said it would review; commercial launch remains contingent on the unenacted framework. On October 18 2026 Pharos replaced the registry's zero-supply proof-of-concept Ethereum and Avalanche contracts with the July 2026 production contracts named in BDACS's September 2026 accountant reserve report (Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc, 18 decimals), linked DefiLlama id 429 and CoinGecko id krw1, and dropped the BSC, Polygon and Plume proof-of-concept rows that krw1.kr lists as PoC only. After a 19.56 million burn on October 30, the production contracts held 6,208,284 KRW1 across Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc on November 1 2026. DefiLlama counts only the 4,010,046 KRW1 on Ethereum. A BDACS official told Seoul Economic Daily, via Decenter, on November 5 2026 that issuance and burning take place continuously in proof-of-concept exercises and that the October 30 burn was also part of a test.
Launch status: quick answers
- When did KRW1 launch?
- KRW1 launched publicly on-chain on Jul 10, 2026, per its sourced launch milestone.
- Who issues KRW1?
- KRW1 is BDACS's 1:1 won stablecoin, on-chain since July 2026 with Woori Bank escrow; full commercial issuance awaits Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act.
- Is KRW1 live yet?
- Yes, KRW1 has been live since Jul 10, 2026. Pharos does not track it yet. Missing lane: supply coverage and scope review. DefiLlama prices KRW1 but counts only the Ethereum deployment (partial supply coverage), and the float is below the $5M review threshold. Its price, supply, liquidity and Safety Score are unavailable on Pharos, not zero, until both a price and a supply source can be verified.
- Which chains does KRW1 use?
- The registry records KRW1 deployments on Ethereum, Avalanche, Arc.
KRW1 Activity
- Milestone
BDACS describes October burn as proof-of-concept testing
A BDACS official told Seoul Economic Daily, via Decenter, that issuance and burning take place continuously in proof-of-concept exercises and that the October 30 burn was also part of a test.
Source - Milestone
KRW1 supply falls to 6.21 million after a 19.56 million burn
On October 30 2026, 9.66 million KRW1 on Ethereum and 9.9 million KRW1 on Avalanche moved from one address to a second address and were burned within five minutes. Supply across the Ethereum, Avalanche and Arc production contracts fell from about 25.77 million to 6.21 million KRW1.
Source - Partnership
Injective and BDACS sign MoU on KRW1 as won settlement asset
Injective and BDACS signed a memorandum of understanding aiming to make KRW1 the exclusive won-denominated settlement asset for real-world assets on Injective. Minting and redemption are limited to approved institutional partners and remain subject to regulatory approval. No launch date was given.
Source - Testnet
BDACS demonstrates a testnet KRW1 to USDC swap through Circle StableFX
At the Korea Blockchain Week side event Bridging Finance Onchain, co-hosted with Circle, Kyobo Life and SBI Holdings, BDACS demonstrated an onchain exchange and settlement of KRW1 against USDC using Circle's StableFX institutional FX program in a testnet environment.
Source - Regulatory
Digital Asset Basic Act September public hearing effectively cancelled; FSC now targets a November subcommittee
The public hearing expected around September 30 fell through after the government bill was delayed, leaving year-end passage uncertain; the FSC still aims for a National Assembly bill-review subcommittee in November. The framework that would authorise won-pegged issuers, and therefore KRW1's commercial launch, remains unenacted.
Source
Earlier activity (19)
- Partnership
BDACS selects Fireblocks for institutional custody supporting KRW1
BDACS announced Fireblocks as its custody infrastructure for stablecoin transactions and cross-chain operations for institutional clients; BDACS reported more than 80 billion won in assets under custody in the first half of 2026.
Source - Regulatory
KRW1 whitepaper draws scrutiny for describing the token as 'a commercial product actually in operation'
Seoul Economic Daily reported that BDACS's 2026 institutional whitepaper markets KRW1 as already operating commercially under its existing virtual-asset-service-provider filing accepted by KoFIU, drawing criticism that this conflates a VASP filing with issuer status under a law that has not passed, with shareholder Woori Bank reportedly unaware; BDACS said it would review whether to revise the wording. On-chain supply remains at proof-of-concept scale, about 141.8 million KRW1 (roughly $97K) across chains.
Source - Milestone
KRW1 joins Circle's Arc mainnet at launch as the only Korean won stablecoin
At Arc's mainnet launch, KRW1 went live as the only won stablecoin on Circle's new Layer 1, converting the October 2025 testnet cooperation into a production integration; BDACS plans KRW1-based on-chain FX using Circle's StableFX and reports integrations across Ethereum, Avalanche, Arc, Plume, Polygon, BNB Chain, and Aptos.
Source - Partnership
BDACS partners with Rain to make KRW1 spendable across Visa's card network
BDACS said it partnered with payments-infrastructure firm Rain to link KRW1 to Visa's global card payment network, with Rain handling Visa issuance and settlement and BDACS handling KRW1 issuance and custody; rollout is staged pending foreign-exchange legislation.
Source - Partnership
BDACS and XBITU agree to build KRW1 card-payment rails
Singapore-based XBITU is to enable KRW1 spending at Visa and Mastercard merchants and through Apple Pay and Google Pay via automatic conversion, starting with a domestic beta. No launch date was given.
Source - Partnership
BDACS adopts LayerZero's OFT standard to run KRW1 as a single omnichain supply
LayerZero says KRW1 will use the Omnichain Fungible Token standard for one unified supply across connected chains, with Stargate executing transfers. The post lists KRW1 as live on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Circle's Arc.
Source - Regulatory
Unified Digital Asset Basic Act bill still not introduced; first public hearing set for late September
National Policy Committee chair Yoo Dong-soo says the FSC's government bill has not yet arrived, ten private-member bills remain pending, and the bank 50%-plus-one consortium rule is unresolved. The Democratic Party plans a first public hearing at the end of September 2026.
Source - Regulatory
Korea's finance ministry targets Digital Asset Basic Act passage in the second half of 2026
The Ministry of Economy and Finance set a target of passing the Digital Asset Basic Act in H2 2026, the framework that would authorise won-pegged stablecoin issuers and gate KRW1's commercial launch. The Bank of Korea and the Financial Services Commission remain split over whether issuance should be restricted to bank-majority entities.
Source - Milestone
BDACS publishes institutional KRW1 whitepaper
Institutional whitepaper published on the BDACS newsroom; krw1.kr now describes commercialization of issuance and circulation for select KYC/AML-vetted institutions, while aggregator-tracked supply remains proof-of-concept scale pending Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act (bills introduced July 28 2026).
Source - Milestone
First production KRW1 mint on Ethereum
The production Ethereum contract 0xb83fc84df7028251066c25f5d61d12fd9d9c8be4 minted its first 1,000,000 KRW1 on July 10 2026, the start of public on-chain issuance from the July 2026 production deployments.
Source - Partnership
BDACS and Aptos Foundation partner to bring KRW1 to Aptos
First deployment of KRW1 outside EVM-compatible chains; aims to accelerate practical stablecoin use cases across domestic and global markets via Aptos's low-fee payment infrastructure for remittances and real-world asset tokenisation.
Source - Regulatory
Korea Digital Asset Basic Act excluded from National Assembly pre-recess agenda; H2 2026 earliest for resumed debate
Source - Partnership
BDACS and Com2uS Holdings sign MoU to build KRW1 payment infrastructure on XPLA/CONX
Source - Partnership
BDACS partners with Plume to position KRW1 as Korean institutional RWA settlement rail
Plume integration lets Korean institutional investors allocate into tokenized RWA instruments denominated in KRW1 without USD conversion; ~$645M of tokenized assets currently on Plume.
Source - Milestone
KRW1 deploys on BNB Chain
Multi-chain expansion to BNB Chain; on-chain BEP-20 contract live (0x8c2f2784cbab626846a53d20d8104ff42b3594c2).
Source - Milestone
KRW1 launches on Polygon network
Multi-chain expansion following the Avalanche PoC; Polygon selected for high throughput, low fees, and integrations with Stripe, Circle, and Mastercard, enabling payments, remittances, and enterprise use cases.
Source - Partnership
BDACS signs MoU with Circle to bring KRW1 to Arc blockchain
BDACS and Circle formalize collaboration to deploy KRW1 on Arc, Circle's new Layer 1 blockchain (public testnet); KRW1 becomes the first Korea-based issuer on the network, joining issuers from Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.
Source - Milestone
KRW1 proof-of-concept goes live on Avalanche with Woori Bank
Successful PoC validates fiat deposits, on-chain issuance, and real-time banking-API reserve attestation; not yet in public circulation.
Source - Milestone
BDACS trademarks KRW1 brand
BDACS files KRW1 trademark and begins building issuance infrastructure ahead of formal Korean stablecoin regulation.
Source
Featured coverage
Injective partners with BDACS to bring Korean won stablecoin to RWA ecosystem
BDACS launches KRW1 stablecoin following successful proof of concept with Woori Bank
Pilot details: each KRW1 fully collateralized via won held in Woori Bank escrow; KISA cites Avalanche for public-sector reliability.
The Korea Won Stablecoin 2026 Race: 6 Players Competing for Asia's Next Financial Frontier
Comparative analysis of KRW1's institutional-RWA settlement positioning versus retail-bank consortium plans under Korea's pending Digital Asset Basic Act.
South Korea's BDACS to launch KRW1 stablecoin on Circle's Arc blockchain
BDACS signs MoU with Circle to bring KRW1 to Arc's public testnet; KRW1 becomes the first Korea-based issuer on the network alongside Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and Philippines issuers.
BDACS brings KRW stablecoin KRW1 to Polygon
Multi-chain expansion to Polygon in December 2025; selected for speed, low fees, and enterprise integrations with Stripe, Circle, and Mastercard.
BDACS and Aptos team up to expand KRW1 stablecoin ecosystem
KRW1 expands beyond EVM chains via Aptos Foundation partnership; Aptos cited for low-cost payments, remittances, and real-world asset tokenisation infrastructure.
BDACS selects LayerZero OFT standard for KRW1
LayerZero's account of the omnichain supply design and the chains where KRW1 is live.