Direct fiat-to-stablecoin pairs on global crypto exchanges can transmit demand for dollar-pegged tokens into foreign-exchange markets and weaken some local currencies, a Bank of Korea note released on Sept. 3, 2026, found. Economists Jihyun Kim and Sangheum Cho studied 12 currencies and pair introductions from 2019 through 2025, identifying a channel in which local investors buy USDT or USDC with domestic currency while market makers sell that currency for dollars to rebalance their positions. Across the studied currencies, local stablecoin premiums fell by 0.33 to 0.38 percentage points after direct pairs went live, while stablecoins flowed from global exchanges into local markets when local prices exceeded international prices. Brazil illustrates the contrast: a one-standard-deviation increase in weekly Google searches for Bitcoin was associated with a 0.109 percentage point increase in the local stablecoin premium and a 0.118% depreciation of the real. Korea, which lacked a direct won-stablecoin pair, saw the premium rise by about 0.85 percentage points without a statistically significant effect on the won. Won-denominated stablecoin purchases reached $64 billion in the 12 months through June 2025, the largest such volume for any local currency in Asia-Pacific, according to Chainalysis. The authors said any expansion of corporate and foreign participation should be coordinated with efforts to internationalize the won and deepen foreign-exchange liquidity.