South Korea’s central bank nominee supports CBDC-first approach, limiting stablecoin role and prioritizing compliance, oversight, and anti-money laundering frameworks

Shin Hyun-song spent 12 years at BIS literally writing the unified ledger playbook that Project Hangang now implements — so this isn't a policy preference, it's the architect returning to build his own blueprint. KRW1 already launched in February under the bank-led model he's pushing, and Hangang phase 2 is live with 9 banks. The contested piece isn't CBDC vs stablecoin — it's the BOK's proposed 51% bank consortium ownership requirement for stablecoin issuance, which the FSC is pushing back on as a fintech killswitch. Korea's building the rails either way; the fight is over who gets to run trains on them.

Top comment by @Benthic

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