"After the GENIUS Act, the U.S. stablecoin regulation bill, passed last year, artificial intelligence (AI) agents have been pouring out. As AI agents emerge as economic players, whoever captures the payment infrastructure will make money."
Suh Byung-yoon, co-CEO of DSRV, made these remarks at "Bitcoin Seoul 2026," held Thursday at the FKI Tower in Yeouido, Seoul, and hosted by Seoul Economic Daily and Decenter. "Stablecoins are the financial infrastructure of the AI era," he said.
He meant that stablecoins must become core infrastructure for AI agents to facilitate finance and commerce smoothly. Kim Ho-jin, CEO of Hashed Open Finance, also argued, "Stablecoins, in which money itself has intelligence, are the currency born for AI agents," adding, "We cannot move to a digital economy without first having digital currency." He continued, "While humans have been the subject of all activities until now, that is changing to AI. This is a time when we need interfaces and payment infrastructure designed solely for AI."
Kang Yu-bin, CEO of Nonce Classic, who lectured that day on the theme "Stablecoins Expanding Into Institutional Finance," also stressed, "Stablecoins are a new settlement infrastructure that has emerged in the transition from traditional payment methods to on-chain. Transactions will become possible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, without needing to go through intermediaries."
In fact, stablecoins' annual transaction volume reached $112 trillion, surpassing the combined transaction volume of Visa and Mastercard. Cryptocurrency experts say the reason individuals find this hard to feel is that 76% of the total transaction volume comes from institutional and automated trading.
There are also high expectations that Korea could take the lead in the process of AI agents using stablecoins. Lim Jong-kyu, head of Asia-Pacific at LayerZero, predicted, "Most stablecoins are based on the U.S. dollar, but non-dollar stablecoins will bring about major changes within the next two to three years. The Asian region, which has a large digital population and is highly fragmented in religion, language, and currency, could become a perfect case for utilizing stablecoins."
However, some point out that financial transactions by AI agents using stablecoins require proper management and verification. Since AI agents hold personal information such as card numbers, there is not only the possibility of information leakage, but the applicable laws also vary depending on the country or entity where the payment is made. Kim Seo-jun, CEO of Hashed, who delivered a keynote lecture that day, stressed, "AI agents also ultimately need people who can manage whether they conduct transactions in line with their intent. AI agents could commit crimes, and there must also be infrastructure to manage things such as taxation on profits generated when they legitimately earn money."
This is also connected to the issue of trust. If there is no trust in the payment and use of stablecoins, transacting parties cannot readily use them. This is why the role of banks draws attention in the early stages.
Heo Min-kang, deputy general manager of the DT Promotion Department at KB Financial Group, who attended the "2nd Seoul Economic Daily Stablecoin Forum" held as a side event of Bitcoin Seoul 2026, explained, "If you give all payment information to AI agents, anxiety from hacking and the like is bound to be great. The volatility of digital assets must be low, but the issuing entity must also be clear and institutional standards need to be put in place." He went on to stress that a bank's greatest asset is trust, and that in the era of the AI agent economy, banks must evolve into trust-based financial hubs.
Regarding this, CEO Kim Ho-jin said, "Finance is ultimately the domain of trust. To reduce risk, creating actual (safe) use cases as quickly as possible, even by a single minute or second, will be the key factor in surviving competition with other countries."
Kang Byung-ha, managing director of strategic planning at Meritz Securities, assessed, "Both domestically and abroad, trading hours are being extended to 24 hours, and settlement cycles will eventually move to T+0 (same-day settlement). Without the introduction of stablecoin and security token offering (STO) payment systems based on AI agents, things like 24-hour settlement are impossible."
