A financial technology expert has called for the issuance of a New Taiwan dollar stablecoin, saying it is vital for safeguarding the nation’s monetary sovereignty and reinforcing the country’s industrial competitiveness.
Driven by strong policy momentum in the US, this year has been widely seen as the “first year of stablecoins” — cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value, typically pegged 1:1 to a fiat currency, and widely used as settlement currencies for digital assets and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
As US dollar-pegged stablecoins such as USDT and USDC account for about 99 percent of the global market, Taiwan risks being sidelined in the emerging digital-finance infrastructure if it does not act soon, Taiwan FinTech Association board member Jeff Wen (溫宏駿) said.
Photo: CNA
The issue goes beyond payment convenience and instead centers on competition over monetary sovereignty and control of financial ledgers, Wen said on Friday.
An NT dollar stablecoin could serve as a medium of exchange and unit of account for RWA transactions, allowing on-chain financial products to be priced in NT dollars, he said.
Without it, Taiwan’s financial products could struggle to circulate globally, he added.
As countries develop new accounting systems alongside traditional banking ledgers, Japan and South Korea are positioning their own currency-backed stablecoins, Wen said, adding that Taiwan could miss a strategic opportunity if it procrastinates.
Nearly 5 percent of domestic firms and more than 10 percent of Taiwanese companies operating overseas are already experimenting with stablecoins for cross-border payments, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council said.
Export-oriented technology firms might already be receiving US dollar stablecoins, and without an NT dollar stablecoin, converting those funds into the local currency could reduce efficiency and erode competitiveness, Wen said.
Taiwan could leverage its semiconductor strength to issue specialized US dollar stablecoins to lower transaction costs globally, while also using NT dollar stablecoins for payments within the domestic semiconductor and artificial intelligence supply chains, he suggested.
Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Peng Jin-lung (彭金隆) earlier this month said that if virtual-asset legislation and related regulations are adopted soon, a Taiwan-issued stablecoin could debut as early as the second half of next year.
However, some critics have said there is little need for an NT dollar stablecoin, given that Taiwan has highly efficient domestic payment systems.
In response, Peng said that the growing use of RWAs and potential domestic applications highlights the merits of a local-currency stablecoin.
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