South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province to Launch Stablecoin Proof-of-Concept in August 2026

Gyeonggi Province, a first-level administrative region in South Korea, said it will begin a stablecoin proof-of-concept (PoC) project in August 2026 to assess potential use cases in local currency applications, government public subsidies, and everyday payment systems. According to ChainCatcher, the initial testing phase will focus on validating three core technologies: programmable payments, zero-knowledge proof privacy technology, and a proof-of-reserves mechanism designed to match stablecoin issuance with reserve assets in real time. The province said the first phase aims to complete end-to-end technical verification across the stablecoin issuance and circulation process. If the first round progresses smoothly, the project is expected to enter a second-stage expansion test from October to December. That phase will evaluate controls to prevent fund misuse, transaction privacy protections, business-fit screening, and will collect feedback from residents and merchants on actual usage to inform potential broader local deployment.