Announcing the Launch of KRWb, The World’s First 1:1 Korean Won Backed Stablecoin That is ‘Globally Accessible and Provably Collateralized’

Alex Friedberg
KRWb
Published in
4 min readJan 30, 2019

Seoul, January 29 2019: BxB Inc. has announced the full public launch of KRWb, the first 1:1 Korean Won (KRW) backed stablecoin. The company deployed the smart contract and soft-launched the token on Airswap earlier this month.

“We’re excited to announce and bring to the global community the world’s first provably collateralized Korean Won backed stablecoin,” said Hwan Kim, CEO at BxB Inc.

“We hope that over time we can grow beyond just a stablecoin or a cryptocurrency into a new fiat-to-crypto solution that improves the way we do business in and out of Korea,” he added.

The full launch today comes with the announcement of an initial capital deposit of KRW 400 million that has collateralized an equivalent volume of newly minted KRWb tokens. This was made possible through funds generated by BxB Inc., including investment from Singapore-based ‘BxB Capital’. While these initial KRW deposits will fuel near term liquidity, BxB Inc. expect that this revolutionary financial product will continue to evolve, according to demands from the market that may be difficult to forecast at this early stage.

BxB Inc. also announced this week that QCP Capital has been selected as the first ‘Issuance Partner’, ensuring market liquidity of KRWb tokens.

“Korea has always been a strategic but challenging market for us,” said Darius Sit (Managing Partner at QCP Capital). “KRWb is a great solution to many of the problems faced by market participants both onshore and offshore. Beyond crypto liquidity, we are excited to be part of a project that is pioneering new ‘fiat-to-crypto’ solutions in Asia,” he added. Additional Issuance Partners will be announced in the near future and will encourage further growth of the KRWb community in the mid-long term.

BxB Inc. proceeded with KRWb listings on both Coblic and BEQUANT as of 8pm KST and 9pm KST respectively on Wednesday January 30, 2019. BxB Inc. is in ongoing discussions with a number of Korean and Global exchanges and expects to announce additional exchange listings over the course of Q1 2019.

ERC-20 Token Collateralized With KRW

Every KRWb token generated will be matched with an equivalent KRW deposit into the KRWb treasury that is securely stored in a bank account managed by BxB Inc. KRWb is an ERC-20 token that can be easily held and/or transferred globally with any ERC-20 compatible wallets and other Ethereum-based products and services available in the crypto-economy, including relevant exchanges.

View the KRWb Token smart contract here.

Addressing Trust

The KRWb team has engaged the services of an independent auditor that will perform regular checks on KRW reserves to ensure that a minimum of 1:1 matching with KRWb liquidity is continuously maintained. These reports will be made public for the KRWb community. Further, the KRWb team will manage minting and burning of KRWb, through an Ethereum-based smart contract that requires a multi-signature checkpoint to complete. These are critical steps in building trust in KRWb and growing the KRWb community at a time when trust among industry players is a major concern.

View our full transparency pledge here.

KRWb Issuance Partners

The KRWb team will select a number of “Issuance Partners” that support the distribution of KRWb and offer market liquidity to foster growth of the KRWb community. They pass rigorous KYC/AML checks prior to selection and meet high quality customer service standards. Further details can be found in the white paper on our website.

Benefits of KRWb

  1. A stable store of value that can be denominated in KRW
  2. Global accessibility of value transfers into and out of Korea
  3. An alternative to KRW Foreign Exchange Rate Hedging
  4. Over time, reduced variance of cryptocurrency prices within Korea vs. global markets

Global Availability

While KRWb is backed by the Korean won (KRW), the token and its utility will be available to the global market through multiple channels. Any user world-wide will have access to KRWb via most ERC-20 compatible services and will be able to acquire and use KRWb without access to fiat KRW, for example via a local bank account, or KRW compatible payment methods.

Liquidity Options

The KRWb team will list KRWb on Korean and global cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and increase liquidity via OTC desk partners. The team is also expecting KRWb to be accessible via Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), KRW, USDT, USD and more. Specific details on future developments will be announced in due course.

Currently KRWb can be acquired on Coblic, BEQUANT, KRWb’s AirSwap Space or through direct OTC purchases in larger quantities from QCP Capital (trading@qcp.capital).

We will continue to release information about additional partnerships and other exchange listings in the coming weeks. Join the official KRWb Telegram channel for updates. Stay tuned!

To arrange an interview with anyone from the executive team at BxB Inc. (English or Korean) email:

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Alex Friedberg
KRWb
Editor for

Co-founder of Block by Block Capital, coming from 6+ years in the global consumer tech sector. Focused on advisory and venture building