Toss Partners With Optimism, Sunnyside Labs to Test Won Stablecoin Infrastructure

Toss said July 8 that it will work with layer-2 blockchain company Optimism and privacy-solutions developer Sunnyside Labs to test Korean won-based digital financial infrastructure.

Viva Republica, the operator of Toss, signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with Optimism and Sunnyside Labs on July 8 to explore the feasibility of developing a won-linked stablecoin. The three companies will run a three-month proof of concept to assess whether OP Stack, Optimism's core technology, can be applied to blockchain-based digital financial infrastructure in South Korea.

The proof of concept will test three main areas: whether financial institutions can directly control payment and settlement processes, how know-your-customer and anti-money laundering requirements can be implemented technically, and how individual transaction data can be protected on a public network. The companies plan to use OP Stack and the privacy technology Privacy Boost to verify the requirements set out by Toss.

Optimism will provide the blockchain infrastructure, while Sunnyside Labs, an official core developer for Optimism, will handle privacy technology. Privacy Boost, developed by Sunnyside Labs, is an institutional solution designed to conceal key information from external parties while compensating for the public nature of blockchains, where transaction histories and balances are openly visible. Financial institutions can still review required transaction records, allowing customer information to be protected on a public network at a standard comparable to traditional finance.

Optimism, an Ethereum layer-2 ecosystem, supports companies building dedicated chains using OP Stack. More than 30 chains, including Soneium, World and Uniswap as well as those from companies and exchanges such as OKX and Kraken, currently operate on OP Stack.

Toss, which has 30 million registered users and payment infrastructure spanning more than 500,000 online and offline merchants, said it plans to use the partnership as a starting point to gradually expand experiments combining blockchain infrastructure with its payments and platform assets.

"We will prove OP Stack's performance and privacy standards in line with Toss's sophisticated technical requirements," Optimism Chief Business Officer Kyle Jenke said.

"For Web3 technology to be successfully integrated into regulated finance, strict regulatory compliance and strong privacy protection are essential," Toss Chief Business Officer Kim Gyu-ha said. "We will test the feasibility of building digital financial infrastructure optimized for the Korean market."