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The Dawn of Web3 Financial Revolution with Blockchain: How Stablecoins Are Redefining Finance
Did you know that stablecoins are becoming the key to unlocking a new era of banking-free finance, going far beyond being mere digital currencies? This shift isn’t just about “cryptocurrency trending”—it’s a fundamental rearrangement of financial infrastructure itself onto the Blockchain, changing how money moves and is stored.
Why Stablecoins Are Not Just ‘Remittance Services’ but ‘Financial Infrastructure’ (From a Blockchain Perspective)
The true power of stablecoins lies not just in their price stability (e.g., pegged to USD or KRW) but in how transactions are processed. While traditional finance relies on centralized systems like banks and payment networks to keep records, stablecoins use the Blockchain network itself as the ledger.
- Transaction records persist even if central servers go down: Transaction histories are recorded and verified by distributed nodes, not by a single institution’s database.
- 24/7 real-time payments and transfers: They bypass banking hours, cross-border payment networks, and intermediate correspondent banks to enable instant settlement.
- Fees shift from ‘intermediation’ to ‘network usage’: Multilayered fees common in international remittances can be significantly reduced.
In essence, stablecoins are less about “digital money” and more like tools that ‘disaggregate banking functions’ and place only the necessary parts on the Blockchain.
How ‘Banking Without Banks’ Becomes Reality (What Technically Changes)
The biggest breakthrough stablecoins bring is that traditionally essential financial roles are increasingly replaced by code and networks.
Payments and settlements happen simultaneously: The atomic transaction model
In traditional systems, payment authorization and settlement (actual movement of funds) take time. In Blockchain-based payments, when conditions are met, transactions and settlements are bundled and executed atomically.
This reduces uncertainty like “Have you received the funds?” or “Has settlement been completed?” in merchant and peer-to-peer transfers.
‘Wallets’ replace ‘bank accounts’ as the starting point of finance
Bank accounts are issued and managed by banks. Stablecoins allow individuals to directly hold assets through wallets.
Importantly, wallets are not just storage containers but the interface for transfers, payments, and asset management.
Discoverable remittances: Lowering barriers with user-friendly address systems
As the experience of sending stablecoins, like KRW pegged stablecoins, directly to merchants or personal wallets grows, the old routine of “getting the recipient’s bank account number and transferring via a banking app” changes.
The crucial factor is UX that simplifies complex wallet addresses into human-friendly formats—a decisive condition for Web3’s mass adoption.
What ‘Phase 1 Completion’ of Web3 Finance Means: Expansion Beyond Stablecoins
Currently, stablecoins are solidifying Phase 1 (stablecoin-based transfers) as real-world infrastructure in the Web3 finance roadmap. This phase is critical because once trust is established that money can move seamlessly on Blockchain, subsequent steps accelerate rapidly.
- Combining with payment infrastructure (Phase 2) → Expanding touchpoints with existing card and payment networks
- On-chain assetization of finance (Phase 3) → Issuing, trading, and collateralizing real and financial assets on Blockchain
Ultimately, stablecoins serve as the starting point and the railway guiding Web3 finance toward on-chain assetization. The story does not end with “simpler remittances”—it’s the prologue to a fundamental shift in where and how finance operates.
A 4-Stage Roadmap of Web3 Finance from a Blockchain Perspective: The Evolution from Real Economy to On-Chain Assets
The future of Web3 finance, evolving step by step, has already begun. Now that stablecoin-based remittances have established themselves as a “practical infrastructure,” the next question is clear: How far can payments expand, and when will assets and finance fully migrate onto Blockchain? The roadmap below offers the most realistic glimpse into this progression.
Blockchain Stage 1: Completing the Stablecoin-Based Remittance Infrastructure
The starting point of Web3 finance is stablecoin remittances. The key is not “crypto speculation,” but the construction of a digital cash–like payment and remittance rail on the Blockchain.
- Immediacy (finality of payment): Once transactions are recorded on the block and confirmed by consensus, they become irreversible.
- Cross-border (international remittance) cost reduction: Compared to traditional structures involving intermediary banks and national clearing systems, fees and time are significantly reduced.
- 24/7 operation: Less constrained by bank hours or national holidays.
Technically, this is structurally advantageous because the ledger is maintained through distributed network (node) consensus rather than a central server, so failure of a single institution does not directly cause system-wide downtime.
Blockchain Stage 2: Connecting with Real Economy Payments (Cards, PG, Merchants)
The next step expands beyond “remittance” into payments. The crucial change here is that Web3 rails can function within the familiar Web2 payment experience (cards/simple payments) without users even realizing the blockchain is involved.
- Integration with existing payment players: Visa, Mastercard, and others have already experimented with and built infrastructure connecting stablecoin payment flows into real-world networks.
- Change in settlement structures: Payment approval may appear conventional, but back-end settlement can be a hybrid, processed with Blockchain-based assets.
- Economies of scale: With merchants, payment gateways, and card networks layered on, Web3 finance expands beyond specific community users into the broad mass market.
The pivotal challenge here is not just technology but designing interfaces with real-world systems like regulation compliance (KYC/AML), consumer protection, and refund/dispute resolution UX.
Blockchain Stage 3: On-Chain Assets and Finance (Full-fledged Tokenization)
The most impactful phase of Web3 finance is when assets and financial products come fully on-chain. Blockchain ceases to be just a payment rail and becomes the infrastructure for issuing, circulating, collateralizing, and settling assets.
- Tokenization: Traditional financial assets—stocks, funds, bonds, deposit-like products, money market instruments—are represented as tokens on the blockchain.
- Programmable Finance: Rules such as interest payment, collateral management, and liquidation conditions can be automated through smart contracts.
- Integration of payment and post-payment settlement: The separation of trading and settlement diminishes, reducing risks like counterparty default.
However, for true on-chain asset realization, technologies like oracles (for real-world data integration), enforceability of legal rights, and custody models must mature in tandem.
Blockchain Stage 4: Complete On-Chain Asset & Financialization and the AI Agent Economy
The ultimate stage envisions a world where financial activity itself defaults to being on-chain. Here, not only individuals but AI agents hold wallets and independently execute trades, payments, and settlements based on programmed conditions.
- Autonomous agent payments: AI calculates service usage, contract conditions, and risk limits to automatically execute payments and settlements.
- Realization of microtransactions: An economy emerges capable of handling massive volumes of small-scale settlements, such as content fees, API calls, and machine-to-machine transactions.
- Automation of trust: Instead of relying on central authority approvals, verifiable blockchain transparency and validation protocols become the foundation of trust.
At this stage, Blockchain evolves from being a “financial app option” into an essential public infrastructure, invisible yet indispensable like the internet itself. Ultimately, the essence of this roadmap is simple: by understanding the flow from remittance (movement of money) → payments (touchpoint with real economy) → assets (digitization of rights) → autonomous economy (AI-powered trading entities), we simultaneously glimpse the next opportunities and risks in Web3 finance.
Naver’s ‘Gikwa’: The Heart of Korea’s Blockchain Innovation and a Simpler Web3 Experience
How does Naver’s ‘Gikwa’ project break down the complex barriers of blockchain and naturally guide Web2 users into Web3? The key lies in “hiding the technology and prioritizing the experience.” Users don’t come by studying blockchain; instead, they are seamlessly led to on-chain experiences within familiar service flows.
Gikwa’s Approach: Designing Blockchain with a ‘Finance-Friendly’ Focus
Naver’s self-developed blockchain, Gikwa, stands out not just as a ledger recording transactions but for its design aimed at financial usability. At a time when Web3 finance is moving beyond stablecoin transfers toward on-chain assets and financialization, Gikwa is built around these core requirements:
- Account and wallet UX that even general users can use without mistakes
- Processing structures robust enough to handle frequent transactions like payments and remittances
- Realistic onboarding pathways that connect with Web2 services
In other words, rather than emphasizing “decentralized technology,” Gikwa’s strategy is to first meet the convenience and reliability standards of financial services.
‘up.id’: Simplifying the Complexity of Blockchain Wallet Addresses
One of the biggest hurdles for blockchain adoption is the wallet address — long, complex strings prone to input errors, causing users to worry, “Am I sending this correctly?” Gikwa Wallet’s ‘up.id’ directly tackles this issue by:
- Compressing complex wallet addresses into short, readable forms
- Reducing user burdens from copying and pasting addresses during sending or payment
- Lowering mistaken transfer risks and entry stress from a practical usage standpoint
Technically, the address itself doesn’t disappear. Instead, an added layer maps the user-entered identifier to the actual on-chain address. This “abstraction” becomes a crucial device that brings Web2 users into the Web3 world.
Realizing Blockchain Onboarding through Upbit Integration
Another highlight of Gikwa is its design allowing users to begin their Web3 journey through channels they already know, such as integration with Upbit. A common reason Web3 services fail is not lack of “good technology” but that there’s only an exit door and no entrance. Gikwa’s approach is to create that entrance within the Web2 ecosystem:
- Connecting with users’ existing accounts and asset experiences to lower initial barriers
- Exposing users to on-chain transaction flows naturally without the need to explore dApps from the start
- Ultimately enabling Web3 to blend in like a daily function, not a separate universe
Blockchain Becomes Mainstream When It ‘Works Invisibly’
The spread of Web3 isn’t about “everyone understanding blockchain” but about blockchain running behind the scenes while users continue as usual. Gikwa targets this sweet spot through address abstraction (up.id), onboarding via major platforms (integration), and finance-friendly design.
In conclusion, Naver’s ‘Gikwa’ strategy boils down to one thing:
Instead of making Web3 complicated to explain, it lets Web2 users ‘use’ on-chain technology in ways familiar to them.
The Era of Blockchain AI Payments: How the Fusion of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Economy
What happens to the concepts of finance and assets when the future where 'AI trades autonomously' becomes reality? The key lies in a structure where decision-making (judgment) is handled by AI, and trust (settlement, ownership, audit) is managed by Blockchain. This combination creates a new market order featuring autonomous economic agents, going far beyond mere automated payments.
How is Blockchain-Based ‘Autonomous Agent Payment’ Possible?
For AI to execute payments, three essential conditions must be met:
- Wallet and Permission Management: AI must be able to move assets, but unlimited power is dangerous. Therefore, policies such as limits on amounts, duration, and recipients are enforced through smart contracts to ensure payments occur “only within approved boundaries.”
- Verifiable Transaction Records: Payment, settlement, refund, and fee details must be preserved tamper-proof. Blockchain’s immutable ledger serves as the standard for auditing and dispute resolution.
- Tokenized Mediums of Value Transfer: Stablecoins or similar instruments with low price volatility are required so AI can reliably manage budgets. This enables an “accounting system where AI controls operating expenses.”
In other words, AI calculates “when/how much/why to pay,” while Blockchain confirms “whether the payment truly happened and who holds ownership.”
The Economic Shift Driven by Blockchain + AI: From ‘Ownership’ to ‘Flow’
In a world where AI trades autonomously, assets become more fractionated and move more frequently. Consequently, the economic focus shifts from static ownership to dynamic usage and settlement (flow).
- Real-Time Settlement Economy: Once contract conditions are met, payments are made automatically, turning supply chain, content, and data transactions into instant payments instead of month-end settlements.
- Popularization of Micropayments: AI can handle thousands of tiny payments on behalf of humans. For instance, single API calls, 10-second content consumption, or 1 kWh of electricity can be immediately priced and paid.
- Acceleration of On-Chain Assetization: Stocks, bonds, points, coupons, and rights to physical assets must be tokenized so AI can “automatically trade, collateralize, and rebalance assets based on conditions.” This perfectly aligns with the ongoing trend of on-chain finance.
Critical Technical Challenges: Security, Privacy, and Accountability
Autonomous payments offer convenience, but significant technical hurdles remain.
- Key Management and Account Abstraction: It is risky for AI to hold private keys directly. Designs that combine multisignatures, hardware security, and account abstraction (policy-based wallets) are vital to satisfy both “automation” and “control.”
- Oracles and Data Trustworthiness: If external data underpinning AI’s decisions—such as prices, delivery confirmation, and credit events—is manipulated, automated payments can be exploited. Reliable data feeds and verification mechanisms are essential.
- Privacy and Regulatory Compliance: Fully transparent transactions would expose corporate and personal trading patterns. Balancing privacy-enhancing technologies like selective disclosure and zero-knowledge proofs with AML/KYC compliance is a core challenge.
- Liability in Case of Incidents: When “AI makes a payment causing a loss,” responsibility must be clearly defined through contracts and code. Standardizing smart contract permissions, cancellation and refund policies, and dispute resolution procedures will expand market confidence.
Near-Future Scenario: The Moment AI Becomes a ‘Wallet-Holding User’
Soon, individuals and businesses will delegate “budgets and objectives” to AI, which will operate atop Blockchain to:
- Choose the fastest, lowest-fee network for payments
- Automatically settle based on contract terms (delivery, inspection, SLAs)
- Secure liquidity by collateralizing tokenized assets when necessary, then spend
- Log all history on-chain for automated accounting and auditing
Ultimately, the question will no longer be “Can AI make payments?” but rather, “To what extent will we delegate economic authority to AI?” Blockchain will serve as the infrastructure that makes such delegation safe and verifiable, while AI will become the executor of new economic activities on top of it.
The Future of Finance Brought by Blockchain On-Chain Assetization: The Moment Everything Connects
The moment real-world assets land on the blockchain, finance changes not just in terms of faster remittances but in the very way assets move. Beyond stablecoin-based remittances (Phase 1), payment infrastructure is integrated (Phase 2), and assets and financial products like stocks, bonds, real estate, and funds migrate on-chain (Phase 3), redesigning the entire financial landscape. Let’s conclude by exploring the core technology and real-world examples to see what astonishing impact this transformation will have on our daily lives.
The Technical Essence of Blockchain On-Chain Assetization: It’s Not About “Recording” but Changing “Execution”
On-chain assetization is not merely about “recording” asset information on the blockchain. The key lies in financial actions such as ownership, interest, dividends, and settlements being ‘executed’ through smart contracts.
- Tokenization: Rights of real-world assets (stocks, bonds, deposits, fund shares, real estate shares, etc.) are represented as digital tokens.
- Atomic Settlement: Payment and ownership transfer occur simultaneously in a single transaction, drastically reducing payment failure (uncollected/unsettled) risk.
- 24/7 Settlement: Less dependent on exchange trading hours or banking business days. As long as the network permits, round-the-clock payments and settlements become possible.
- Programmable Finance: Conditional payments, automatic collateral management, and automatic interest distribution run as code, reshaping the role of what used to be “manual back-office processes.”
From this perspective, Web3 finance evolves not by eliminating intermediaries altogether but by moving some intermediary functions (verification, settlement, reporting, rights enforcement) onto blockchain-based infrastructure to enhance efficiency.
Real-World Blockchain Examples Show the Direction: ETFs and Tokenized Stocks
The trend of on-chain assetization is already confirmed by real-world cases.
- BlackRock Example: Institutional acceptance of digital assets via products like Bitcoin ETFs signals that “digital assets are being absorbed by traditional finance.” This hints at future expansion of on-chain operation and settlement of traditional products such as fund shares, bonds, and money market funds (MMFs).
- Robinhood’s Tokenized Stocks: When flagship rights like stocks are distributed as tokens, it not only improves trading convenience but also increases “financial utility” through reuse as collateral (loans, derivatives), fractional ownership, and instant settlement.
The conclusion these examples point to is simple: Once assets go on-chain, ‘usage’ explodes rather than mere ‘trading.’ The same asset can instantly connect to various financial operations such as loan collateralization, payments, and automated rebalancing.
How Blockchain-Based Financial Infrastructure Will Transform Everyday Life: “Assets-Payments-Loans” Connected on One Screen
As on-chain assetization matures, individual financial experiences are likely to be reorganized as follows.
The Collapse of Boundaries Between Payment and Investment
Once stablecoin payment infrastructure (Phases 1-2) is established, the moment salary (or earnings) arrive, parts can automatically distribute into cash-equivalent assets, bond tokens, or stock tokens, enabling real-time asset management.Instantaneous Collateralization: “Collateral Status” Becomes Credit Instead of “Loan Approval”
On-chain assets transparently verify ownership and collateral status, so smart contracts can instantly set collateral and execute loans once conditions are met, reducing delays caused by business days, review, and paperwork.Everyday Micro and Fractional Ownership
By breaking down expensive assets (prime stocks, high-value real estate, art shares, etc.) into token units, individuals can strategically build portfolios with small amounts. This technically makes ‘investment democratization’ far more attainable.
The Importance of Domestic Blockchain Options Like Korea’s “Gikwa” Financial-Friendly Chain
In Korea, infrastructure designed with financial friendliness, such as Naver’s self-developed blockchain ‘Gikwa’, along with initiatives enhancing user experience (UX) like Upbit integration and up.id, are emerging. This shows that the success of on-chain assetization hinges not only on “technological superiority” but critically on how much the user entry barriers can be lowered.
- Simplifying wallet addresses into human-readable forms (
up.id) makes remittances, payments, and asset transfers feel like everyday services. - Linking with platforms that have large Web2 user bases turns on-chain assets from “technology for niche communities” into mainstream financial experiences.
In short, while on-chain assetization is grand in theory, its practical spread accelerates by reducing ‘small frictions’ like wallet, ID, and payment UX.
The Endpoint of Blockchain + AI Fusion: The Meaning of an “AI That Pays by Itself” Era
The final piece of the puzzle is AI. When trust is provided by blockchain and decision-making plus execution by AI, autonomous agents can become the protagonists in economic activities.
- AI agents can pay service fees using stablecoins,
- secure liquidity by collateralizing on-chain assets, and
- automatically invest, hedge, and settle once conditions are met.
The crucial shift here is not “who presses the button” but that economic activities move from ‘manual human operations’ to ‘policy-based automatic execution.’ Finance will be updated more like software, and individuals will transition from “product choosers” to “rule designers.”
On-chain assetization does not simply speed up finance; it connects assets, payments, loans, and settlements in a single network. The tighter these connections become, the more we will experience not “sending money” but “value flowing automatically.” Real-world assets riding on blockchain are poised to transform finance into a giant API, becoming the standard of the next era.
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