On 29 January 2019, BxB Inc., a South Korea-based fintech firm, launched a Korean won-backed stablecoin, according to the company’s press release. KRWb, which is the abbreviation of the stablecoin, is reportedly pegged to the national currency with a 1:1 ratio and the first stablecoin produced in the country backed by the Korean won.

The news follows another fiat currency-backed stablecoin launch in Hong Kong. A Hong Kong-based money transfer platform Bitspark reportedly launched the first stablecoin backed by the Hong Kong dollar (HKD) just a day before the current KRWb launch.

An initial deposit of 400 million won (approx. $360,000) was prepared by BxB Inc. and Singapore-based BxB Capital PTE Ltd. to secure KRWb tokens of equivalent value. It was also reported that BxB Inc. would be managing the mining and burning of the token using an Ethereum (ETH)-based smart contract process for the purpose of improving liquidity. The process purportedly involved a multi-signature checkpoint as well as a third-party auditor.

A blog post on Medium, an online publishing platform, written by the co-founder of BxB Inc. Alex Friedberg revealed that the coin had a beta soft launch on a decentralized exchange platform called AirSwap before being released on Korean and global exchanges. KRWb will be available for users across the globe on the ERC-20 platform. The stablecoin is reportedly currently available on three exchanges, and the list will continue to have new additions during the first quarter of 2019 as ongoing discussions are being held between BxB Inc. and local and global exchanges.