Project Hangang: Unified ledger handles 80,000 retail users
The Bank of Korea's Project Hangang successfully conducted live retail transactions with 80,000 users using tokenised deposits. The initiative demonstrates a practical implementation of the unified ledger concept, settled in tokenised central bank money.
Direct issuance anchors unified ledger
Project Hangang, named after Seoul's Han River, implements the unified ledger concept by issuing wholesale central bank money in tokenised form directly on its platform.
This contrasts with linking to an existing real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, a key design choice with legal and operational tradeoffs.
The system recently conducted live retail transactions involving approximately 80,000 users and 12,000 selected merchants from April to June 2025, settling tokenised deposits in tokenised central bank money.
Additional use cases, such as public fund disbursement via smart contracts, are under development.
The project demonstrates the potential for programmable, ledger-based financial infrastructure to enhance the two-tier monetary system, ensuring atomic settlement and preserving the singleness of money.
Beyond decentralization: Central bank as anchor
The core value of a programmable ledger lies in its ability to bind money and assets as tokens, governed by smart contracts, enabling atomic settlement and composability.
This allows multiple parties to transact on shared infrastructure without bilateral messaging.
Unlike public permissionless blockchains, Project Hangang utilizes a Proof of Authority arrangement, where the central bank acts as the authoritative validator.
This design avoids the need to reward validators and the fragmentation risks inherent in decentralised ledgers, preserving trust in the central bank as the monetary anchor.
The ledger is thus a tool to enhance the central bank's role, not remove it, safeguarding the stability of the current monetary system.
Practical innovation, complex path
Project Hangang offers a compelling blueprint for integrating tokenisation into existing monetary systems, demonstrating scalability and practical utility.
Its design choices, particularly the direct issuance of tokenised central bank money and the authoritative validator model, address critical tradeoffs between technical innovation and financial stability.
While technically elegant, the broader adoption of such unified ledgers will hinge on resolving complex legal and operational questions, especially concerning cross-border interoperability.