1. A New Governor, A Clear Set of Priorities
Shin Hyun-song formally began his four-year term as Bank of Korea governor on Tuesday, April 21, delivering his inaugural address at the central bank's Seoul headquarters. The speech set out a digital finance agenda that placed central bank digital currencies and bank-issued deposit tokens at the center of South Korea's monetary future — and made no mention whatsoever of won-denominated stablecoins. Given that stablecoin regulation has been one of the most actively contested issues in South Korean financial policymaking in 2026, with legislators working to establish a legal framework under the pending Digital Asset Basic Act and major local financial institutions already positioning for a stablecoin market, the omission was widely noted. What Shin chose to say — and what he chose not to say — amounts to an early and consequential signal about where the Bank of Korea's institutional weight will fall as South Korea's digital currency landscape develops.
2. Project Hangang: The CBDC Pilot Moves to Phase Two
The clearest policy commitment in Shin's address was his pledge to advance Project Hangang into its second phase. Project Hangang is the Bank of Korea's existing pilot program for testing a blockchain-based retail CBDC and deposit token system, which has functioned as the central bank's primary laboratory for digital money infrastructure. Shin said the second phase would focus on expanding the usability of both the CBDC and the deposit tokens associated with it, building toward a system in which the central bank issues a wholesale digital currency while commercial banks issue retail-facing deposit tokens that are fully convertible into it. The architecture is specifically designed to preserve the two-tier structure of the existing monetary system — with the central bank at the apex and commercial banks as the retail distribution layer — while incorporating the programmability and settlement efficiency of blockchain infrastructure.
Shin stated that these combined efforts would "elevate the status of the Korean won in the digital payment environment," framing the CBDC and deposit token program not merely as a domestic payment modernization initiative but as part of a broader strategy to strengthen the won's position in global digital finance.
3. Project Agora: Korea's Cross-Border Tokenization Commitment
Alongside the domestic Project Hangang work, Shin committed the Bank of Korea to continued active participation in Project Agora, the cross-border payment tokenization initiative launched in April 2024 by the Bank for International Settlements and seven participating central banks. Project Agora explores the use of tokenized central bank money and commercial bank deposits within a unified settlement platform designed to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and more transparent. Shin's framing of Korea's Agora participation as a mechanism for advancing the won's global standing was notable — positioning international cooperation on tokenized payments infrastructure not as a technical exercise but as a strategic tool for monetary diplomacy, aimed at ensuring the won maintains relevance in an increasingly digital global payments architecture.
4. The Stablecoin Silence and Its Significance
The stablecoin omission from Shin's inaugural address is the most politically significant element of the speech and requires context to interpret properly. During his confirmation hearing before the National Assembly earlier in April, Shin had explicitly acknowledged a role for private stablecoins, stating that they would "be able to coexist complementarily and competitively with deposit tokens" and would play a "sufficient role" in the future currency ecosystem. That statement, combined with his apparent endorsement of a bank-led model for won-based stablecoin issuance, had led to cautious optimism among financial industry players preparing for a stablecoin market. The confirmation hearing statement is now at odds with the silence of the inaugural address, and the gap between the two moments is politically meaningful.
South Korea's proposed Digital Asset Basic Act — which would establish a comprehensive legal framework for digital assets including stablecoin issuance rules — has been moving through the legislative process with considerable industry attention, but has slowed with further debate expected after the June 3 regional elections. Shin's decision to center his opening policy statement on CBDC and deposit tokens, while leaving stablecoins entirely unaddressed, sent a clear signal about where the central bank's advocacy will be directed during the legislative deliberations that follow. The Bank of Korea had reportedly paused aspects of its CBDC program last June as momentum behind won-based stablecoins grew within the private sector and among legislators sympathetic to fintech and technology company participation in stablecoin issuance. Under Shin, that institutional balance now appears to be shifting back toward the CBDC-first model.
5. Shin's Intellectual History on Stablecoins
Shin's omission of stablecoins is not accidental — it reflects a set of analytical views he developed and published during his tenure as head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements. In a research paper published last month, Shin argued that stablecoins fail to satisfy what he calls "unity" — a core property of money that requires seamless, consistent exchange across the monetary system without fragmentation. His argument is that blockchain networks are inherently fragmented across different chains with varying fee structures, security levels, and decentralization parameters, meaning that stablecoins issued across multiple chains cannot achieve the monetary unity that characterizes central bank money or bank deposits backed by central bank reserves. He also raised doubts about whether blockchain-based currencies improve foreign exchange efficiency relative to existing systems, pointing to compliance complexity and additional costs that offset the potential gains.
That intellectual framework positions CBDCs and bank-issued deposit tokens as the instruments that can achieve monetary unity — because they are backed by central bank reserves and convertible at par — while stablecoins are categorized as niche instruments suited to tokenized asset markets rather than as a foundation for everyday payment infrastructure. His first address as governor reflected that framework directly, even if the confirmation hearing had suggested a degree of pragmatic accommodation toward private stablecoin issuance.
6. Expanded Crypto Market Scrutiny and Currency Modernization
Beyond the digital currency agenda, Shin's address contained two additional commitments with direct relevance to the crypto sector. First, he pledged that the Bank of Korea would expand its monitoring of cryptocurrency markets and non-bank finance, seeking broader data access to track financial risks in the shadow banking sector. That signal is consistent with the central bank's prior warnings about privately issued tokens undermining monetary policy transmission and financial stability, and suggests the supervisory posture toward crypto markets will intensify under Shin's leadership. Second, he outlined plans to modernize South Korea's currency infrastructure, including the introduction of 24-hour foreign exchange trading and the development of an offshore Korean won settlement system — steps that would modernize the country's existing financial plumbing while strengthening the won's international role independent of blockchain-based instruments.
7. What the Address Means for South Korea's Digital Finance Landscape
Shin's inaugural address effectively drew a line in the ongoing South Korean debate about the respective roles of CBDCs, bank deposit tokens, and private stablecoins in the country's digital financial future. The central bank's position — as articulated publicly by its new governor on his first day in office — is that official digital money infrastructure should lead, with any private stablecoin activity occupying a secondary and carefully regulated niche. That position will have direct bearing on how the Digital Asset Basic Act is ultimately shaped, given that the Bank of Korea's views carry significant weight in the legislative process. For the financial institutions and technology companies that had anticipated a relatively open stablecoin issuance framework under the Act, Shin's address is a moderating signal. For global stablecoin issuers looking at South Korea as a potential market, it confirms that entry will require navigating a regulatory environment in which the central bank is actively advocating for an institutional architecture that limits private issuers to roles below the primary tier of digital payment infrastructure.