Chainlink has entered a working group with European and South Korean banking organisations to study whether regulated stablecoins can power real-time foreign exchange settlement, marking another step by institutional lenders toward testing blockchain infrastructure for wholesale finance.
Project Pangea: who is involved
On Tuesday, Chainlink announced the initiative, called Project Pangea, alongside three partners: South Korean digital asset infrastructure company FairSquareLab; the Unified Korea Alliance (UniKA), a consortium comprising more than a dozen Korean commercial banks; and Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks.
The working group aims to evaluate direct, atomic swaps of euro-denominated and South Korean won-denominated stablecoins using Chainlink’s data infrastructure alongside FairSquareLab’s onchain foreign exchange settlement technology. The underlying market is substantial: according to the Bank for International Settlements, the global foreign exchange market processes roughly $9.6 trillion in daily trading volume.
Scope and status
Project Pangea is currently a working group rather than a live payment network. No production implementation timeline has been disclosed. The consortium is focused on evaluating wholesale financial infrastructure use cases rather than consumer payment applications.
The initiative sits alongside a wave of similar activity. Fintech startup OpenFX recently raised $94 million to expand its stablecoin-based payments network, targeting Southeast Asia and Latin America as initial markets.
Stablecoins gaining ground in institutional finance
Global financial institutions are accelerating their exploration of stablecoins across corporate payments, cross-border settlements, and foreign exchange transactions, supported by clearer regulatory frameworks in the United States, Europe, and other major financial centres.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently described stablecoins as experiencing a “ChatGPT moment” as more institutions evaluate where the technology fits their operations. That sentiment aligns with Citigroup’s projection that the global stablecoin market will reach $1.9 trillion by 2030, up from approximately $315 billion at present. Citigroup attributes that expansion to continued adoption within crypto markets, a gradual shift from physical US dollar banknotes to digital dollars, and the growing use of stablecoins as a short-term liquidity store in both US dollars and local currencies. In its most optimistic scenario, the bank estimates the market could reach $4 trillion by 2030.
