Chainlink has joined a working group with banking organizations across Europe and South Korea to explore using stablecoins for foreign exchange settlement — another sign that blockchain infrastructure is creeping into the plumbing of global finance.
The initiative, called Project Pangea, brings together South Korean digital asset firm FairSquareLab, UniKA (a consortium of more than a dozen Korean commercial banks), and Qivalis (a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks). The goal: evaluate direct, atomic swaps of euro- and won-denominated stablecoins using Chainlink’s data infrastructure paired with FairSquareLab’s onchain FX settlement tech.
This isn’t about consumer payments. It’s wholesale infrastructure — the kind that moves the $9.6 trillion in daily FX volume tracked by the Bank for International Settlements. Project Pangea is a working group, not a live network, and no production timeline has been announced.
Still, the direction is clear. Banks are increasingly testing tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins to speed up cross-border settlement. Fintech OpenFX recently raised $94 million to build a stablecoin-based payments network focused on Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently called stablecoins’ moment a “ChatGPT moment” for finance. Citigroup projects the global stablecoin market could hit $1.9 trillion by 2030, up from roughly $315 billion today — with a bull case of $4 trillion. The drivers: continued crypto adoption, a shift from physical cash to digital dollars, and growing use of stablecoins as short-term liquidity tools.
