The digital currency policies of the United States and South Korea are heading in different directions. While the US is drawing a line against introducing a government-issued central bank digital currency (CBDC), Korea is maintaining a stance that it should embrace stablecoins while making a CBDC the central axis of its monetary system. This difference in policy temperature is interpreted as stemming from the two countries' monetary environments as a reserve currency nation and a non-reserve currency nation.
According to the blockchain industry on the 11th, the US government's opposition to a CBDC is firm. Mike Selig, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stressed on the 8th via X, "President Trump's Digital Asset Markets Working Group is fully aware of the risks a CBDC could pose to Americans," adding that "a US CBDC will never be introduced under our administration."
He went on to say, "Americans do not want the government to surveil and censor their economic decisions." This revealed concerns that a CBDC could be misused as a means of government financial surveillance and transaction control.
In fact, the US Congress recently passed the Road to Housing Act, which contains a provision restricting the Federal Reserve (Fed) from issuing a CBDC until 2030. Even after 2030, the Fed would need separate congressional approval to introduce a CBDC. However, President Trump did not immediately sign the bill. Interpretations suggest that this was not because he opposed the bill, but because he used it as a political bargaining card to advance key legislation being pushed by the Republican Party.
Instead, the US is making private-led stablecoins the core of its digital dollar strategy. Through the GENIUS Act enacted last year, it institutionalized the regulation of stablecoin issuance and reserve assets, laying the legal foundation for private companies to issue dollar-based stablecoins.
This is interpreted as a strategy to expand the dollar's international influence through privately issued stablecoins rather than having the government directly issue a digital dollar. Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC have already established themselves as key means of trading and settlement in the global digital asset market, effectively serving as digital dollars.
Korea, by contrast, takes the position that monetary trust should be maintained with the central bank at the center. Hyun Song Shin, Governor of the Bank of Korea, said at a plenary session of the National Assembly's Finance and Economy Committee on the 9th, "I think stablecoins and deposit tokens each have their own specialized uses." Earlier, at a National Assembly confirmation hearing in April, he had stated that "a CBDC and the deposit tokens issued by commercial banks based on it should be the center of the digital currency ecosystem."
Analysts say the difference in the two countries' approaches lies in the distinction between a reserve currency nation and a non-reserve currency nation. The US can expand the dollar's international influence with privately issued dollar-based stablecoins alone, whereas Korea must also consider the impact on foreign exchange management and monetary policy if won-based stablecoins spread abroad. For this reason, the Bank of Korea is interpreted as seeking to maintain a CBDC as a safety valve for its monetary system.
Within the industry, opinions are being raised that Korea should devise a digital currency strategy suited to its own monetary environment rather than simply following US policy.
Kim Jong-seung, CEO of Xcrypton, said, "The stablecoin ecosystem, deposit tokens, and CBDC models are highly likely to coexist," adding that "Korea's core issue is not the replacement of won settlement by dollar stablecoins, but how to secure the won's role in the digital currency order." He continued, "A won stablecoin should not be a channel for circumventing foreign exchange regulations, but rather infrastructure for experimenting with the internationalization of the won in a controlled manner."
