Blockchain gaming company Wemade is promoting a Korean Won-based stablecoin ecosystem, forming the Global Alliance for KRW Stablecoins (GAKS) with Chainaries, CertiK, and SentBe as founding partners.
Wemade announced that the partnership will support StableNet, a dedicated mainnet for South Korean Won-backed stablecoins, with publicly available code and a consortium model aimed at meeting institutional and regulatory requirements.
Under this partnership, Chainaracy will integrate threat detection and real-time monitoring, while CertiK will be responsible for node validation and security auditing.
Meanwhile, remittance company SentBe will contribute to licensed remittance infrastructure in 174 countries. This will enable the KRW Stablecoin Initiative to operate within South Korea’s regulated digital asset ecosystem.
The launch marks Wemade’s concerted effort to reposition itself as a long-term infrastructure builder after years of setbacks, including delisting of its tokens and a bridge hack that eroded investor confidence.
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Wemade’s rocky path and stablecoin axis
Wemade’s foray into stablecoin infrastructure comes after seven years of tumultuous expansion from a traditional game studio to one of South Korea’s most ambitious blockchain builders.
The company launched its blockchain division in 2018 and has grown from a team of four employees to an operations team of 200 people. However, rapid growth has collided with the country’s evolving regulatory landscape, forcing the company to limit its Play-to-Earn (P2E) services to overseas markets.
Much of the pressure Wemade faced centered on its native WEMIX token. In 2022, Korean exchanges delisted the asset due to discrepancies between reported and actual supply. This caused the price of the token to drop by over 70%.
The token took an even bigger hit in 2024, when a bridge exploit caused a loss of 9 billion won (approximately $6 million). The company’s late disclosure attracted intense scrutiny, further eroding investor confidence and leading to a second wave of token delistings.
The stablecoin pivot marks Wemade’s renewed effort to reset the company’s overall narrative and reposition its technology toward more compliant, infrastructure-centric use cases.
In a report in the Korea Times, the company said it is developing a stablecoin mainnet focused on KRW while avoiding becoming a stablecoin issuer itself. The company positions itself as a technology partner and consortium builder for other Korean companies.
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Situation in South Korea after Terra regulation
The collapse of Terra in 2022 continues to cast a shadow over South Korea’s digital asset policy, with lawmakers and regulators becoming particularly sensitive to the risks associated with stablecoins.
The Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Bank of Korea (BoK) will take an uncompromising stance starting in 2022, calling for stricter liquidity, oversight and disclosure rules as they work on the next stablecoin framework focused on risk containment.
The central bank also advocated giving banks a leading role in stablecoin issuance, thereby reducing risks to financial and foreign exchange stability.
The Bank of Korea warned that allowing non-bank institutions to take the lead in stablecoin issuance could undermine existing regulations.
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