Samsung's 800M Stablecoin Play Puts It Ahead of Apple, Google

Samsung will add stablecoin support to 800 million new smartphones by default, putting the tech giant in a position to become one of the largest distributors of dollar-pegged crypto, analysts told CoinDesk.

The move came during Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event. The Samsung Wallet will include fiat-pegged savings and payment accounts across the devices. The company did not project user uptake or say how many users already use its existing crypto features.

"Distribution is the scarce asset here, and Samsung owns a great deal of it," said Joseph Goh, director and head of Asia Pacific at crypto investment bank Areta. "Due to this strategic move, Samsung will emerge as a dominant distributor of stablecoins such as USDC."

This is not Samsung's first crypto push. It introduced a digital asset wallet in 2019 through Knox, a hardware-isolated vault with fingerprint or PIN access. The wallet supports bitcoin, ether and tron, and connects hardware wallets like Ledger's Nano S and Nano X. The Samsung Wallet already has nearly 19 million users in South Korea alone and is available in 61 countries, said Lee Dinham, smartphone specialist product manager.

"This will make Samsung one of the first major mobile phone brands to offer native stablecoins on smartphones, enabling fast and reliable transfer of digital value," Dinham said at the event.

Ben Nadareski, CEO of Solstice, said the move flips crypto's distribution problem on its head. "For years, crypto had deep venues in places like South Korea and weak paths into daily spend," he said. "Samsung Wallet points the other way: stablecoins inside a hub people open for cards and checkout."

The hardware push comes alongside an infrastructure bet. Three Samsung affiliates – Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card – agreed in May to acquire a 4% stake in Dunamu, operator of South Korea's largest crypto exchange Upbit, for $408 million. Samsung SDS CEO Lee Jun-hee said during the company's Q2 earnings call last week that the Dunamu stake is a strategic investment to enter digital asset infrastructure, including stablecoins and AI-powered payments.

Goh said the two moves are halves of the same strategy. "The wallet announcement secured distribution; SDS and Dunamu will secure the infrastructure beneath it," he said. He believes Samsung aims to build the infrastructure itself rather than rely on a third party. "Their goal is to be positioned in both dollar and won stablecoins while Korea's framework is still being discussed. The timing is deliberate."

South Korea unveiled a draft of the Digital Asset Basic Act in April that would lay the groundwork for rules on trading, custody, supervision and stablecoin issuance. No deadline has been set for approval or implementation.

The integration could give Samsung an edge over Apple and Google in serving crypto users, said Yat Siu, executive chairman of Animoca Brands. But he cautioned that applications and merchants will need to make stablecoins useful for everyday spending for the bet to pay off. Samsung is an investor in Animoca Brands.

Robby Yung, CEO of Investments at Animoca Brands, said wider distribution is good for the sector but questioned whether Samsung holds a clear advantage over crypto-native platforms. "Overall, I think this is great news for the sector," he said.