Stablecoins, Samsung Wallet, and what it can mean for Philippine crypto

At the recent Samsung Unpacked 2026 held in London, Samsung executives unveiled a tasting of financial products including Samsung Card, a credit card in partnership with Barclays in the United States. The physical card and its digital counterpart through Samsung Wallet allows consumers in the States cashback rewards from purchases, as well as promotions for purchasing Samsung products. What turned some heads was the announcement of Samsung entering the crypto space with the support for stablecoins.

Stablecoins are considered as the safer bridge to getting the general public to adopt crypto as this digital currency is backed 1:1 by a real world asset. For instance, USDT, with a market cap of over USD $1.84 billion is a digital currency backed by Tether, with a 1:1 ratio that for every USDT, there is a real world USD backing it. One good way to look at it would be to compare a stablecoin to a casino chip, which is technically worth real money. Each chip is backed by a real world currency at the cashier.

In recent years, there has been a push and pull regarding wider stablecoin acceptance with some markets outright banning it and other markets holding banks to strictly abide by a liquidity backing to keep the asset as close to its 1:1 peg.

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In the Philippines, although Samsung Wallet exists on devices with NFC, its features are limited because local banks have instead partnered with Google’s Tap to Pay feature on Google Wallet. Stablecoin assets can also be traded within licensed VASP operators such as GCrypto, Maya, GoTyme, Coins PH and more.

There’s a rather interesting opportunity here for a local VASP (Virtual Asset Service Provider) to widen their crypto onboarding as Samsung is the leading consumer phone brand in the Philippines with NFC support. For a bank or financial institution to accept crypto, they need to acquire a VASP license, of which is limited in the Philippines as regulated by the BSP. There are currently less than 15 licensed VASP operators in the country with some entities fast-tracking entry by “buying” into an existing, non-operational VASP license.

Although Samsung Wallet operations are mostly limited to outside the USA, there seems to be a true opportunity to introduce the concept of stablecoins, a “safer crypto bet” to every Filipino because of the ubiquity of Samsung phones. On the flipside, it also means a broader push to educate the market on the risks and volatility of crypto trading.