Why US Monetary Authority's allowing stablecoins is good for Korean virtual asset Industry?

On the 4th January, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a legal interpretation that banks can use ‘stable coins (virtual assets with constant value)’ for payment and remittance business.

According to the document, US banks will be able to verify stablecoin transactions while acting as nodes (network participants) on the blockchain in the future. You can also exchange or store stablecoins for fiat currency.

The Korean virtual asset industry sees this news as a good news for the entire market. This is because U.S. regulators have recognized virtual assets and blockchain technology as financial infrastructure.

Like Korea, the United States has been criticized for not easily accepting innovative technologies in finance. But this time OCC turned the plate over.

OCC Commissioner Brian Brooks made a statement and said, “Other countries have built real-time payment systems, but the US wants to provide real-time payment technology. Some of the technologies are managed by banks, and nodes such as blockchain It is based on a verification network.”

In a word, it means that banks are promoting technology advancement by enabling blockchain technology, and furthermore, a public blockchain that anyone can participate in. It is interpreted to mean that the private sector is advancing the technology rather than the state stepping out to build a payment system.

Collaboration between the financial sector and virtual asset companies is a scheduled procedure. Stablecoin projects are of course cheering. This is because there is a great use of banks.

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of 'Circle', a stablecoin USDC issuer, said, “(With this legal interpretation) US banks can use the public blockchain and stablecoin as financial infrastructure.”

Most of the stablecoins on the market are based on public blockchains. USDC alone was issued based on public blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana.

The growth of the public blockchain project is expected as banks can utilize public blockchain-based stablecoins and also participate as nodes in the blockchain. Until now, most of the blockchains used by banks have been closed, that is, private blockchains, but the game has changed again.

With this, CEO Allaire explained that the public blockchain can be used in the same way as remittance networks such as SWIFT (International Interbank Payment System) and ACH.

He also predicted that "decentralized, open source software will be the infrastructure for the global economy as well as the US payment system."

If stablecoins and public blockchains are used as financial infrastructure, virtual assets and blockchains are used in endless applications. This is why the industry saw the news of OCC as a favorable factor.