Dunamu, parent company of South Korean exchange Upbit, has partnered with Visa to develop financial services built on stablecoins and artificial intelligence, according to an announcement made at an event in San Francisco on August 27.
The partnership will focus on stablecoin payments and cross-border remittances, with both companies examining how AI agents could handle shopping and payment workflows. Dunamu and Visa aim to connect digital assets more directly to traditional payment infrastructure rather than operate them in parallel.
Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok identified AI, stablecoins, and tokenization as major financial trends the partnership intends to address. The companies did not disclose specific deployment timelines, target volumes, or which stablecoins would be involved in the exploration.
Upbit is one of South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume. Dunamu operates the platform and has sought partnerships to bridge crypto and traditional finance since the country's regulatory environment began permitting regulated crypto trading in 2021.
Visa has run multiple pilots with stablecoin operators and central banks over the past three years, testing settlement rails for cross-border payments. The card network has also explored connections between payment infrastructure and blockchain networks, though most deployments remain in testing phases.
The announcement arrives as stablecoin adoption for remittances and retail payments remains constrained by regulatory uncertainty in most developed markets. Tokenization projects across Asia have accelerated through 2024, particularly in Singapore and Hong Kong, where regulators have issued clearer guidelines for asset-backed digital currencies.
Both Dunamu and Visa have existing relationships with central banks and financial regulators that will likely shape the scope of any deployed service. The document to watch is any published roadmap from either company detailing which jurisdictions will host the first stablecoin payment pilots and whether they target retail or institutional users.
