At the Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event, Samsung announced an integration that puts digital assets directly into the pockets of billions of people. The South Korean technology giant officially added stablecoin support to Samsung Wallet, opening an independent transaction gateway for more than 800 million Galaxy smartphones currently in circulation worldwide.
Holding the Rarest Asset in Crypto
This expansion does not stop at simply adding coins. Samsung Wallet now operates in 61 countries and has accumulated nearly 19 million users in its own domestic market. With more than 1 billion active Samsung smartphones worldwide, this reach immediately reshapes the digital wallet competitive landscape.
“Samsung will become a dominant stablecoin distributor like USDC,” said Joseph Goh, an analyst at Areta. According to Goh, a distribution network is a rare asset in the crypto industry, and Samsung clearly has it on a massive scale. Ben Nadareski of Solstice highlighted the advantage of this positioning: users now find stablecoins right inside the hub they are already accustomed to when opening credit cards and performing shopping checkouts.
For Yat Siu of Animoca Brands, this integration indeed resembles a feature addition rather than an ambition to build a new super-app. However, the impact is concrete: this move gives Samsung a clear advantage over Apple and Google in embracing global crypto users.
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A mass distribution network via millions of phones is just one piece of a larger scenario. Its foundation was already laid last May. Three of their affiliated entities - Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS, and Samsung Card - agreed to purchase a 4% ownership stake in Dunamu. This $408 million deal places Samsung’s capital right at the heart of the operating company of Upbit, South Korea’s number one crypto exchange.
Samsung SDS CEO Lee Jun-hee explicitly described this investment in Dunamu as a pillar of their strategic maneuver. The target is dominance in the digital asset infrastructure business, spanning stablecoin transactions to artificial intelligence-based payment systems. Analysts view the combination of the wallet’s strength and the exchange infrastructure as two sides of the same strategy: Samsung wants to control the distribution channel while also owning the infrastructure engine.
Targeting Two Currencies at Once
This dual position makes the direction of Samsung’s expansion clear. Analysts believe that the target is not just the circulation of dollar-backed stablecoins in the global market. Samsung is quietly positioning itself to dominate the flow of Korean won-backed stablecoins. This combined maneuver was deliberately executed while the regulatory framework of South Korea’s Digital Asset Basic Act is still up in the air in the restrictive draft stage, giving them an early entry opportunity.
Uniting billions of dollars of hardware with the infrastructure of the country’s largest crypto exchange provides a bargaining position that competitors find hard to dispute. While other major players are still hesitant to jump in fully, Samsung is taking a shortcut from within its own devices’ built-in systems.
As reported by CoinDesk.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
