Visa and Dunamu—best known as the parent company of South Korea’s Upbit crypto exchange—have announced a strategic partnership aimed at exploring how stablecoins could be used for payments, cross-border remittances, and settlement services, alongside AI-enabled commerce.
In a Friday announcement, Dunamu said the two firms plan to combine Dunamu’s digital asset technology with Visa’s global payments infrastructure to study product and service opportunities across major markets. The partnership also points to using artificial intelligence for “agentic commerce,” where AI agents can search for products or services and complete purchases and payments on behalf of users.
Key takeaways
- Visa and Dunamu will test stablecoin-based use cases spanning payments, remittances, and settlement, leveraging Visa’s existing network.
- The partnership frames stablecoins, tokenization, and AI as an interlinked trend reshaping finance and commerce.
- Dunamu said it is evaluating multiple stablecoin options rather than tying the initiative to a single project.
- Open Standard’s dollar-backed OUSD is among the stablecoin proposals being considered, according to Dunamu.
- The parties also plan to explore AI “agentic commerce” scenarios that connect AI-driven purchasing with stablecoin payment rails.
Why Visa and Dunamu are focusing on stablecoins
Dunamu’s announcement places stablecoins alongside tokenization and AI as key forces expected to “change how finance and commerce operate.” The stated goal is to connect digital asset capabilities with traditional finance, which is where Visa’s payments reach could become a critical complement.
Stablecoin-centered initiatives have increasingly targeted real-world payment and settlement pain points—particularly the frictions involved in moving value across borders. By pairing Visa’s network with Dunamu’s digital asset expertise, the partnership suggests an attempt to move beyond pilots and toward workable integration models, though the companies did not specify timelines or deployment details in the announcement.
OUSD enters the conversation, but Dunamu keeps options open
As part of the exploration, Dunamu and Visa said they are considering business models involving Open Standard’s proposed Open USD (OUSD), a dollar-backed stablecoin introduced in June. Open Standard said that more than 140 companies have signed up to use OUSD, naming Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, and BlackRock among them.
Dunamu, however, indicated that OUSD is only one of several stablecoin projects it is evaluating. It also said the partnership has not prioritized a specific stablecoin for the work, signaling that the effort is currently oriented around feasibility and structure rather than committing to a single asset design.
This matters for market participants because stablecoin partnerships often hinge on compliance expectations, issuer and reserve arrangements, and interoperability—factors that can differ significantly between proposals. Dunamu’s stance implies that the partnership could remain flexible as regulatory and technical requirements evolve.
Upbit clarification underscores the partnership’s scope
The news comes against a backdrop of earlier discussion about OUSD and Upbit. In July, Upbit said it was not participating in the issuance of OUSD after Dunamu was named as one of the businesses involved in Open Standard’s initiative.
That clarification indicates that being connected to a stablecoin roadmap through partnerships or infrastructure evaluation does not necessarily translate into direct issuance involvement by Upbit itself. For users and investors watching stablecoin rollouts, the distinction highlights how roles can vary—issuers, service providers, trading venues, and network integrators can all be present in different capacities without assuming identical responsibilities.
Agentic commerce: AI agents plus stablecoin rails
Beyond payments and remittances, Visa and Dunamu said they will also explore “agentic commerce.” In practical terms, this refers to AI agents that can identify products or services and execute transactions—potentially including searching, selecting, and paying—on a user’s behalf.
The companies will examine ways to combine AI with stablecoin-based payment and settlement infrastructure. While the announcement does not provide technical specifics, the direction is clear: stablecoins are being positioned not only as an alternative to traditional settlement mechanisms, but as part of an end-to-end stack that could enable automated purchasing workflows.
For developers and businesses, this raises questions about how AI decisioning, payment authorization, and compliance checks would be integrated. It also suggests that future implementations may focus on controlling risk (fraud and unauthorized spend) while maintaining the speed and global accessibility that stablecoin-based settlement can offer.
What to watch next
Visa and Dunamu’s partnership is an exploratory step, not a guarantee of an imminent stablecoin product launch. The next developments to track are whether the firms narrow down which stablecoin options they can realistically integrate, how they structure settlement and compliance workflows, and whether agentic commerce concepts move from planning into test implementations.
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