SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — SOOHO.IO, a blockchain technology company that has contributed to major digital asset infrastructure projects in Korea, has launched Project Namsan, a consortium initiative to pioneer the Korean won stablecoin ecosystem, with Chainlink joining as a key technical partner. As an initial use case, the consortium has conducted a live pilot for foreign tourists, where participants deposited USD-based stablecoins and received KRW-denominated digital vouchers for payments at costs more than 30% lower than conventional FX channels.
This effort builds on the strategic partnership established between SOOHO.IO and Chainlink in 2024 to jointly develop tokenized asset and CBDC use cases across Asia. It also extends SOOHO.IO’s prior work with the Bank of Korea on Purpose Bound Money (PBM), which enables programmable controls on how stablecoins can be used.
Powered by the Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), the Namsan network is connected to multiple public and private blockchains, while Chainlink Proof of Reserve supplies continuous verification of stablecoin reserves. This combination ensures KRW vouchers are issued only after stablecoin settlement is validated, establishing a Delivery-vs-Payment (DvP) model that creates a transparent and reliable FX process.
CCIP was selected for its defense-in-depth security model, with its consensus layer powered by the same Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Network (DON) infrastructure that secures over $100 billion in DeFi TVL and has enabled tens of trillions of dollars in onchain transaction value since 2022. Chainlink Proof of Reserve has emerged as the industry standard for onchain reserve transparency, ensuring tokenized assets including stablecoins, real world assets, and wrapped tokens remain fully collateralized through independent onchain verification.
This pilot has been underway since July of this year, in collaboration with Korean public enterprises including Grand Korea Leisure (GKL). GKL, a public corporation operating the foreigner-only casino ‘Seven Luck,’ attracts around 1.5 million international visitors annually and maintains branches at major tourist locations, including the Gangnam COEX branch.
This strategic initiative demonstrates the potential for programmable money and verifiable data standards to advance Korea’s stablecoin ecosystem and strengthen future financial innovation.
Jisu Park, CEO of SOOHO.IO, stated, “This strategic initiative with Chainlink is a truly meaningful achievement that demonstrates our technology’s recognition on the global stage. We will faithfully fulfill our role as a trusted clearing and settlement partner to ensure financial institutions throughout the Asia-Pacific region can safely utilize and distribute stablecoins.”
Niki Ariyasinghe, Head of Business Development, Asia-Pacific and Middle East of Chainlink Lab, stated “Our collaboration with SOOHO.IO as part of our involvement in Project Namsan demonstrates how our infrastructure brings security and transparency to Korean stablecoin FX markets. By enabling interoperability across blockchains and verifiable reserve data onchain, this strategic initiative establishes a clear path for integrating stablecoins into Korea’s financial ecosystem at scale.”
About Chainlink
Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi.
Many of the world’s largest financial services institutions have also adopted Chainlink’s standards and infrastructure, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, ANZ, and top protocols such as Aave, GMX, Lido, and many others. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. Learn more at chain.link.
About SOOHO.IO
SOOHO.IO has been protecting over 3.2 trillion KRW worth of digital assets through blockchain security technology since its establishment in 2019, and has gained recognition for its blockchain technical capabilities by participating in the Bank of Korea CBDC digital voucher project.
SOOHO.IO’s flagship product ‘Touchstone’ is a consortium blockchain infrastructure for financial institutions that supports the safe issuance and distribution of digital assets. Additionally, the Purpose Bound Money (PBM) development platform ‘Purplace’ implements programmable digital currency that can impose conditions on payments, providing innovative financial services.
