Samsung Wallet to Add Stablecoins in Payments Push

Samsung said during its annual Galaxy Unpacked event that Samsung Wallet will add stablecoin support, part of a broader push to turn the mobile wallet into a hub for digital assets.

Lee Dinham, a product manager at the South Korean electronics giant, previewed the expansion on stage. “Samsung Wallet will go beyond cash and savings. It will embrace new forms of digital value, including stablecoins,” Dinham said. He described the move as positioning the company among “the first major mobile brands to bring native stablecoins to a smartphone, offering fast and reliable digital value transfers.”

The company did not name specific stablecoins, a launch date, or integration partners. Samsung Wallet already stores payment cards and loyalty programs. It recently added the Galaxy Card. In October 2025, Samsung deepened a partnership with Coinbase, letting Galaxy users in the U.S. buy cryptocurrencies directly through the wallet. That integration initially targeted more than 75 million Galaxy users, with plans to expand.

The stablecoin addition is Samsung's latest bet on blockchain-based assets inside its mobile platform. Other hardware makers have been pushing into the same territory. Solana Mobile, a blockchain-focused phone project, is gaining adoption but now faces more competition from mainstream device makers.

Separately, Circle signed memoranda of understanding with Kakao Group and Toss Bank to explore stablecoin payment infrastructure in South Korea. The agreement with Kakao covers payment rails and wallet integration, according to a statement. South Korea is one of the most active markets for crypto retail trading, and stablecoin-linked payment products have drawn interest from both fintechs and traditional banks.

Franklin Templeton's head of digital assets, Sandy Kaul, argued in a recent note that AI agents are the next “killer” use case for blockchain, specifically through agent-to-agent micropayments. “The ability for autonomous software to transact in stablecoins without human intermediation opens a new category of economic activity,” Kaul wrote. The asset manager has been one of the more active traditional firms in tokenized money market funds and blockchain-based fund distribution.

Crypto payment cards hit a record daily volume of $36.82 million on July 20, according to data from Paymentscan. KAST, a card issuer focused on stablecoin-linked spending, led the day with the highest single-day volume among tracked providers. The record underscores growing real-world use of stablecoins for retail payments, even as regulatory uncertainty around issuer reserves and bank partnerships persists in several jurisdictions.

SecondFi, a decentralized finance protocol, said it will shut down after a theft of 16.1 million ADA, worth roughly $2.6 million. The exploit stemmed from a cryptographic flaw in the wallet architecture, the team said. Users have until July 30 to withdraw remaining funds. The incident is the latest in a string of wallet-level exploits that have pushed smaller DeFi projects toward closure.

Telegram plans to roll out a non-custodial crypto wallet to its roughly 1 billion users this summer. Founder Pavel Durov called the initiative “the largest crypto wallet launch in history.” The wallet will let users hold and transfer digital assets without Telegram controlling private keys. The messaging app has been expanding its blockchain features through the TON ecosystem, which already hosts a range of decentralized apps and token projects.

Samsung's stablecoin announcement, Circle's South Korea push, and Telegram's wallet rollout all point to the same trend: major consumer platforms are betting that stablecoins become a standard payment rail, not a niche crypto product. The question is which jurisdictions will write the rules that let those integrations scale without regulatory friction.