Ratio’s John Cho wants Asia to stop routing every payment through the dollar

John Cho, CEO of blockchain settlement firm Ratio and chief stablecoin officer at the Kaia DLT Foundation, is pushing a model that would let Asian businesses settle cross-border payments directly in local-currency stablecoins instead of converting through the U.S. dollar.

The proposal does not challenge the dollar’s dominance. Instead, it seeks to place dollar stablecoins such as USDT and USDC alongside digital tokens pegged to Asian currencies, allowing businesses to settle transactions in the currency they actually use.

The idea comes as regulators across Asia develop clearer stablecoin frameworks. Hong Kong, for example, brought its Stablecoins Ordinance into effect in August 2025 and granted its first two stablecoin issuer licenses in April 2026.

Asia’s cross-border payment problem

International trade still depends heavily on correspondent banking relationships, pre-funded Nostro and Vostro accounts and payment processes constrained by banking hours and time zones.

That infrastructure can make cross-border settlement slower and more expensive than domestic transactions. Businesses operating across Asia may also face additional FX costs when payments are routed through the U.S. dollar even when neither the buyer nor seller ultimately needs dollars.

A South Korean company paying a supplier in Singapore dollars, for example, could potentially avoid an unnecessary conversion into and out of dollars if both currencies were available as regulated digital settlement assets.

That is the core argument behind multi-currency stablecoins: keep dollar liquidity where it is useful while giving businesses access to stable digital representations of local currencies.

Cho says the two models should not be viewed as competing systems.

“I don’t think this is an either-or scenario,” Cho said. “USD stablecoins will continue to dominate global liquidity because the dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, but real commerce happens in local currencies.”

He added that the emerging model would allow local stablecoins to complement USDT and USDC by reducing unnecessary FX conversions and supporting domestic settlement.

Stablecoins target the Nostro capital lockup

The proposed shift is about more than transaction speed. It also targets the capital institutions must traditionally keep parked in overseas accounts to facilitate international payments.

Nostro accounts are used by banks to hold funds in foreign currencies at other financial institutions. While they help make cross-border payments possible, maintaining liquidity across multiple jurisdictions can tie up working capital and create inefficiencies when markets are closed.

The source article behind Cho’s proposal estimates that more than $1 billion is locked up in Asian trade through such traditional arrangements. That figure should be treated as an industry estimate rather than a universally established market statistic.

Blockchain-based settlement could provide an alternative by operating continuously rather than being restricted by conventional banking schedules.

Ratio is positioned around this model with chain-agnostic settlement infrastructure, while Kaia operates a unified Layer 1 blockchain formed from the merger of Kakao’s Klaytn and LINE’s Finschia networks.

The bigger opportunity is interoperability. Instead of forcing companies to abandon existing treasury systems, on-chain infrastructure could operate behind the scenes, routing transactions through digital settlement rails only when they provide measurable benefits.

That could make multi-currency stablecoins less of a disruptive replacement for banks and more of an invisible settlement layer working alongside existing financial infrastructure.

Regulation could decide whether the model scales

The technology, however, is only one part of the equation. Institutional adoption depends heavily on regulatory certainty.

In the United States, the CLARITY Act remains a major piece of pending digital-asset legislation. The House passed the bill in 2025, and the measure has since advanced through the Senate process, but it has not become law.

Asia is moving on several fronts as well. Hong Kong’s stablecoin regime is already operational, with licensed issuers expected to launch regulated stablecoins during 2026.

Cho expects regulation to become a major catalyst for institutional adoption across the region.

“Large-scale adoption will only happen when stablecoin infrastructure demonstrably outperforms existing rails without requiring companies to compromise on compliance,” Cho said.

He expects the regulatory shift in Asia to accelerate over the next 12 to 24 months, potentially creating a larger market for compliant local-currency digital assets.

That regulatory progress could be crucial for multi-currency stablecoins, because corporations and financial institutions are unlikely to move significant payment volumes onto blockchain networks without clear rules governing issuance, custody, settlement and compliance.

A dollar-dominated system with local currency rails

The emerging picture is not one of dollar stablecoins being displaced. Instead, it is a more fragmented but potentially more efficient settlement architecture.

The dollar remains the dominant reserve currency and a major source of global liquidity. USDT and USDC therefore retain an important role in international digital payments. But companies conducting business within Asia often have liabilities, revenues and expenses denominated in local currencies.

That creates a case for multi-currency stablecoins to sit alongside existing dollar liquidity rather than replace it.

If the infrastructure develops as proponents expect, businesses could eventually move money across borders without repeatedly converting between bank deposits, dollars and local currencies. Payments could be settled directly in tokenized representations of the currencies required for the transaction.

The result would be a financial system in which multi-currency stablecoins operate quietly underneath global commerce, reducing settlement friction while preserving the dollar’s central role in international liquidity.

For Asia’s increasingly interconnected economies, that could turn stablecoins from a crypto-market instrument into something far more consequential: programmable infrastructure for regional trade.