Wemade’s 7-Year Blockchain Journey Culminates in Global KRW Stablecoin Push

Wonil Suh, Executive Vice President of Wemade, represents Korea’s blockchain gaming evolution. His company launched its blockchain journey seven years ago with the establishment of WEMIX, becoming one of Korea’s most experienced Web3 enterprises. With over 1,000 employees dedicated to WEMIX-related operations globally, Wemade operates at unprecedented organizational scale in blockchain gaming.

During Korea Blockchain Week’s main event, particularly after sessions featuring US participants including Donald Trump Jr., Suh appeared increasingly confident about stablecoin adoption. His conviction stems from Wemade’s practical experience managing millions of gaming transactions and developing comprehensive blockchain infrastructure. The executive envisions Korean Won stablecoins facilitating everything from K-content consumption to tourism payments worldwide.

Why did Wemade launch the stablecoin project, ‘Stable One’, as a gaming company?

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“Wemade initiated our blockchain business seven years ago in 2018, establishing us among Korea’s most experienced companies in this domain with our scale and focused commitment. It’s not that we recently started stablecoins because they’re hot or trendy—we’ve maintained this strategic direction consistently. As a gaming company, we recognized that blockchain technology offers substantial utility in gaming applications, and we’ve witnessed numerous successful implementations within our own gaming portfolio.

We’ve accumulated extensive knowledge through managing hundreds of millions of transactions from over 30 games supporting over 1  million monthly concurrent users. We’ve consistently believed this expertise shouldn’t remain proprietary but should benefit the broader industry. Stablecoins represents a pivotal opportunity in this regard. We didn’t merely study the technology—we developed practical applications with it. From this perspective, we possess significant value to contribute to the ecosystem.”

Rather than being a direct issuer, Wemade positions itself as a platform provider for stablecoins. Can you explain your partnership model and how you plan to build this consortium approach?

“Rather than establishing our own proprietary stablecoin, we believe consortium participation would be more advantageous. As a technology partner, we aim to extensively leverage our existing technological capabilities. We will collaborate with various Korean enterprises, and as essentially a tech partner, we can create synergies with those in the banking and financial sectors that possess decades or centuries of institutional expertise in regulatory compliance and licensing frameworks.

We’re cultivating global partnerships—Chainalysis participated in our recent event, demonstrating our commitment to expanding these international alliances. Our strategy involves launching a testnet, inviting diverse partners to participate, going open-source, and targeting early next year for operational deployment with multiple strategic partners.”

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Upon announcing the Stable One, Wemade mentioned wanting overseas users to adopt the KRW stablecoin. What specific use cases do you envision – from cultural content consumption to tourism payments?

“Korea is currently at a cultural peak, with extensive global exposure through travel, K-culture fandom, and Korean content consumption worldwide. These digital natives are broadly distributed globally. Instead of using foreign stablecoins for Korean cultural content, having a Korean stablecoin could serve as our foundation.

For companies and labels with artists and IPs with global fandom, when selling tickets or merchandise online—rather than pricing in dollars or euros—they could facilitate direct KRW transactions and remittances. Foreign tourists visiting Korea currently exchange currency at airports or local money changers, but if  they could simply convert to digital KRW stablecoins upon arrival, using familiar payment apps for Korean transactions, this would eliminate traditional currency exchange inconvenience while supporting Korean businesses.”

What is Wemade’s overarching global strategy, and how does the WEMIX Play platform fit into becoming a major gaming destination worldwide?

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“After launching MIR4 four years ago, we realized all content, especially games with user time investment and internal economies, would inevitably require blockchain integration. We determined we needed to create a platform—since this technology will be universally adopted, we should build excellent systems for smaller companies with limited resources to utilize, rather than having every company develop independently.

Essentially, game developers won’t need to create a game launcher or payment system for each game they develop, so they can just focus on content creation and simply be onboarded to the platform. We envision WEMIX Play becoming a global gaming platform where all game companies—from Africa, India, Eastern Europe—would naturally list their games on our platform, alongside Apple, Google, and Steam. Currently featuring dozens of games, our long-term vision encompasses thousands, even hundreds of thousands of titles, all powered by our WEMIX blockchain infrastructure and utility token ecosystem.”

How do you see AI transforming the gaming industry, and how is Wemade integrating AI with blockchain technology? Can you tell us about your NVIDIA collaboration?

“AI and gaming naturally complement each other, as do crypto and gaming. Across our 20-30 games currently in development through various studios, every single one leverages AI—whether for enhanced art creation or algorithmic development. We partner with NVIDIA rather than building everything in-house. While productivity improvements are obvious benefits, the transformative potential lies in AI fundamentally reshaping gameplay experiences. We integrate game tokenomics during development, weaving blockchain technology organically into the game fabric rather than adding it superficially. AI should similarly enable revolutionary gameplay—AI companions, skill-adaptive experiences, personalized strategic assistance. Combined with crypto and stablecoins, we foresee agentic AI facilitating autonomous agent-to-agent commerce within gaming ecosystems, marking a profound industry paradigm shift.”

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Looking ahead 5-10 years, how do you expect blockchain technology to reshape both gaming and finance? What role does Wemade want to play in that transformation?

“I envision a future where AI enhances productivity, creating more leisure time and potentially universal basic income scenarios. People will have two experiential paths: expensive real-world experiences for the wealthy, or rich digital experiences for those with abundant time but limited resources.

Digital worlds perfectly serve this latter demographic. Gaming extends beyond traditional gameplay—platforms like Roblox already represent metaverse experiences where commerce operates primarily through crypto. AI agents will facilitate these transactions, with stablecoins enabling seamless payments. When our children mature, this integrated AI-crypto-gaming ecosystem will seem completely natural. Wemade positions itself at the center of this major paradigm transformation.”

Given some regulatory challenges Wemade has faced in Korea, what message would you send to international investors who might have concerns about the Korean crypto landscape?

“As one of Korea’s largest gaming companies with global reach, our combat strength is formidable. We’ve fought many battles, experienced setbacks, and developed extensive strategies. These challenges strengthen rather than weaken us. With over 1,000 employees dedicated to WEMIX-related work—unprecedented globally—we’ve built unmatched organizational capability. Having weathered these difficulties, we’re now positioned to deliver superior services. Korean companies possess tremendous potential that institutional investors and crypto holders should recognize and support.”