South Korea’s KRW1 Goes Omnichain as LayerZero Unlocks Cross-Chain Expansion

South Korean digital asset custodian BDACS is migrating its won-backed KRW1 stablecoin to LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard for usage across multiple blockchains.

The KRW1 token has already been deployed to other networks, including Ethereum, Avalanche, and Circle’s Arc. BDACS says that having a separate copy of an asset on each network caused friction for customers transferring the asset between networks, and hampered its use and distribution. BDACS hopes to replace that model with a single asset supply across compatible networks with their OFT.

Under the new system, a KRW1 token transfer from one blockchain network to another would be deducted from the source blockchain network and added to the target blockchain network, while the user interface for these transactions would be done through LayerZero’s Stargate application. BDACS would maintain the issuance of tokens and provide an interface to add new networks without separate token supplies or liquidity pools.

LayerZero’s OFT technology is also used by stablecoins, such as USDT0. It is also used by PayPal USD and USDG▲$1.00, issued by Paxos. LayerZero claims that 87% of cross-chain transfer volume uses the LayerZero standard, with over $280 billion of lifetime transfers on 170+ blockchains. USDT0 follows a very similar architecture for moving dollar liquidity between supported networks without independent pools of bridge liquidity.