Upbit parent Dunamu partners with Visa on stablecoin payments and AI commerce

Upbit’s operator, Dunamu, has entered into a strategic partnership with Visa.  

The two companies will build stablecoin-based payments, cross-border remittances and AI-driven financial services. 

What is Dunamu planning with Visa deal? 

A partnership between Dunamu and Visa was unveiled at Visa’s Global Market Support Center in San Francisco. 

The plan pairs Dunamu’s digital asset technology, including custody, transfers and anti-money-laundering tools built up through Upbit, with Visa’s payments network. Specifically, the deal will explore international payments, remittances and settlement services running on stablecoins, as well as AI-powered finance. 

The company will also explore agentic commerce, where an AI agent hunts for a product or service and completes the purchase and payment on the user’s behalf. 

Both firms have said they will examine business models built on OUSD, which is the dollar-backed stablecoin from the Open Standard consortium that includes Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Circle and more than 140 other institutions. However, it has not launched yet.

OUSD differs from Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, which are run by single companies, while it is designed as shared infrastructure managed through independent governance. Most of OUSD’s reserve income is passed back to the banks, card firms and exchanges that distribute it, and it has no issuance or redemption fees.

A spokesperson of Dunamu reportedly stated that the OUSD is one of several stablecoins under review by the company and that it is “not prioritizing nor excluding specific stablecoins.”

Notably, Dunamu, along with several other Korean firms, was once listed as a consortium partners. However, Dunamu later said there was no formal agreement to join.

Why Visa is expanding into South Korea’s stablecoin market

Cryptopolitan reported that Shinhan Financial Group signed its own strategic agreement with Visa on August 24 to test stablecoin issuance, remittance and redemption. The agreement is Shinhan’s second stablecoin partnership in four months. 

Visa also joined BLOOM, a Monetary Authority of Singapore initiative that links traditional payment systems to regulated stablecoin rails. J.P. Morgan, DBS and Circle were among the participants.

Visa, which has an annualized settlement volume of $7 billion as of April, already runs stablecoin pilots across nine blockchains and more than 130 stablecoin-linked card programs in about 40 countries.

The launch of either of these products depends on South Korea passing legislation that governs digital assets. Cryptopolitan has reported that the Digital Asset Basic Act is still being reviewed by the National Assembly. 

The law may allow only groups where commercial banks own at least 51% to issue won-backed stablecoins, following warnings from the Bank of Korea about letting non-bank companies issue stablecoins.

Prior to the Visa deal, Hana Financial Group took a 6.55% stake in May to jointly build a won-stablecoin ecosystem. Samsung affiliates bought a combined 4% stake in the company before its July talks on stablecoin and AI payments. Dunamu also runs its own public blockchain, Giwa. 

Target countries for the financial service being built, as well as service formats and a launch schedule, have not been set.

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