Hashed Open Research (HOR), the policy think tank of blockchain, AI and content venture capital firm Hashed, published a strategy report on a Korean won stablecoin in the agent economy era and shared stablecoin trends and its stance on a won stablecoin.

The report said competition over stablecoins is expanding from issuance to settlement and distribution infrastructure as an "agent economy" in which agents buy goods and services and make payments on behalf of people becomes a reality. It stressed that a won stablecoin needs a strategy to secure an independent settlement network and a digital identity authentication system, beyond debate over who issues it.

The report said global payments and stablecoin companies are pursuing vertical integration by expanding business areas beyond simple issuance to include settlement and distribution. Stripe is strengthening payments and settlement capabilities by acquiring blockchain infrastructure companies in succession. Circle, the issuer of USDC, the world's second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, is also expanding from issuance into settlement by building its own payments blockchain network, Arc.

By contrast, domestic policy discussions on a won stablecoin are focused on disputes over who issues it, and need to expand into discussions that cover the broader industry ecosystem including settlement and distribution, the report said.

The report analysed the stablecoin industry's profit structure and said market leadership and profits go not to the issuer that mints coins, but to companies that secure the channel through which payments are made, the settlement network, and the user touchpoint, distribution. It said this is because issuers, vulnerable to regulation and interest rate fluctuations, must give up a significant share of profits to distribution partners.

The report said domestic policy should also broaden its scope to cover the overall ecosystem, including how returns on reserve assets are shared, the bargaining power of distributors, and conditions and decision-making structures for access to settlement networks, rather than focusing on granting issuance authority to a specific entity.

The report described the agent economy as a battleground for a new settlement currency. About 98.6 percent of current AI agent payments are processed with dollar-based stablecoins. It said this is the result of early development environments adopting the dollar as the default, which then became entrenched.

HOR said Korea should begin full-scale discussions on what infrastructure and currency will be used to settle AI agent payments before this trend becomes fixed. It said that while institutional preparation is delayed, issuance of some won-linked assets and proof-of-concept experiments by domestic companies are proceeding in reliance on overseas infrastructure such as foreign entities, foreign blockchains and dollar-based stablecoins, and stressed the need to speed up relevant systems and infrastructure building.