Chainlink to Build FX Settlement Network With European, Korean Banks

Chainlink is moving further into traditional finance research by joining a new cross-border working group focused on using stablecoins for foreign exchange (FX) settlement. The effort—announced alongside South Korean and European banking networks—targets how tokenized euro and won stablecoins could be exchanged via direct “atomic swap” mechanisms.

On Tuesday, Chainlink introduced Project Pangea with South Korean digital infrastructure firm FairSquareLab, the Unified Korea Alliance (UniKA)—a consortium that includes more than a dozen Korean commercial banks—and Qivalis, a euro stablecoin consortium backed by 37 European banks. The project is designed as a collaboration to evaluate settlement workflows rather than a consumer payment product.

Key takeaways

• Project Pangea brings European and South Korean institutions together to test stablecoin-based FX settlement.
• The working group centers on direct, atomic swaps between euro- and won-denominated stablecoins.
• Chainlink will contribute its data infrastructure, while FairSquareLab will support onchain FX settlement technology.
• The initiative reflects a broader shift toward stablecoins in wholesale settlement and corporate use cases, not just retail payments.

What Project Pangea is trying to prove

According to Chainlink, Project Pangea aims to connect participants across Europe and South Korea to assess whether direct exchange of stablecoins—specifically, euro- and South Korean won-denominated tokens—can be performed in an atomic manner. “Atomic swaps” generally refer to settlement designs where both sides of an exchange occur together, reducing exposure to time lags that can exist when payments and asset transfers are not synchronized.

Chainlink’s role in the collaboration is described around its data infrastructure, while FairSquareLab is expected to provide the onchain foreign exchange settlement technology for participants to evaluate the end-to-end process.

Chainlink also framed the initiative as a step toward testing stablecoins as a component of regulated, institutional infrastructure. The announcement does not provide a production timeline, and Project Pangea is explicitly positioned as a working group rather than a live network for customer transactions.

Why stablecoins are being tested for FX settlement

The push behind Project Pangea fits into a wider pattern: banks and other financial institutions increasingly explore stablecoins for wholesale settlement workflows. These experiments often focus on speed, interoperability, and the ability to represent value digitally in a way that can be programmatically transferred between systems.

That focus matters because FX is inherently complex. The Bank for International Settlements has estimated that global FX markets process about $9.6 trillion in daily trading volume. Large volume alone doesn’t guarantee improved settlement, but it does create a strong incentive to reduce operational friction and to modernize how liquidity moves across borders.

Project Pangea’s structure—linking banks across regions to evaluate tokenized settlement—signals that participants are looking beyond consumer-facing “crypto rails” and toward infrastructure that resembles existing regulated workflows.

From concept to competition: other stablecoin settlement efforts

Project Pangea is not an isolated example. The stablecoin narrative in payments has increasingly broadened into institutional and cross-border channels, including startups that build regulated networks for moving value in bulk.

One related development mentioned alongside Chainlink’s announcement is OpenFX, a fintech startup that raised $94 million to expand a stablecoin-based payments network. The report notes an initial focus on Southeast Asia and Latin America, illustrating how stablecoin settlement initiatives are being pursued across different regions and use-case priorities.

While OpenFX’s work is aimed at building a payments network, Project Pangea is framed more narrowly around a bank-and-consortium working group testing how stablecoins could function in FX settlement. For investors and builders, the difference is meaningful: one path focuses on product rollout, while the other emphasizes proof of settlement mechanics and integration between financial institutions.

Market momentum: banks and corporates are taking stablecoins seriously

The broader stablecoin trend is shaped by institutional interest and evolving regulatory clarity in major jurisdictions. The article points to growing activity across the United States, Europe, and other financial hubs, where regulated frameworks have encouraged banks and corporations to experiment with tokenized value transfers.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has described stablecoins as reaching a “ChatGPT moment,” suggesting that more institutions are now actively evaluating how stablecoin technology could fit into core financial operations. That perspective aligns with the direction of Project Pangea: even without a direct consumer-facing launch, banks are moving toward testing stablecoin settlement as part of mainstream financial plumbing.

The potential market size also remains a key driver of institutional attention. The report cites Citigroup estimates that the global stablecoin market could expand to $1.9 trillion by 2030 (from roughly $315 billion today). Citigroup attributes much of this growth to factors such as stablecoin adoption in crypto markets, gradual digitization of dollars, and stablecoins serving as short-term liquidity in both U.S. dollars and local currencies.

Citigroup’s more optimistic scenario—also referenced in the source material—suggests stablecoin market growth could reach as high as $4 trillion by 2030. (The estimate is attributed to a Citigroup report available via the link included in the original material.)

For readers tracking stablecoins beyond speculation, this matters because institutional experimentation tends to filter into tangible infrastructure only after repeated technical and compliance evaluations. Working groups like Project Pangea can therefore be an early signal of where later operational pilots may emerge—especially around cross-border settlement and liquidity management.

What to watch next is whether Project Pangea moves from evaluation to formal pilots with measurable settlement performance and clearer interoperability requirements. While no production timeline has been announced, the participants—spanning multiple banks and regional consortia—suggest the next phase, if it happens, will likely focus on integration details: how atomic swaps are operationalized, how settlement finality is handled across jurisdictions, and what governance and compliance models institutions adopt for tokenized FX rails.