Chainlink has joined Project Pangea, a bank-backed effort that aims to speed up foreign exchange settlement between Europe and South Korea.
Summary
- Project Pangea links Chainlink with European and Korean banks to test faster stablecoin FX settlement.
- The group wants to replace T+2 currency settlement with atomic payment-versus-payment trades using bank standards.
- LINK traded near $7.59 as Chainlink’s cross-border bank settlement plan drew fresh market attention.
The group plans to test stablecoin-based settlement for currency trades that often still take two business days to clear.
The project brings together Chainlink, FairSquareLab, UniKA and Qivalis. Chainlink’s announcement described the group as more than 50 banks with over $10 trillion in assets under management. Qivalis is backed by 37 European banks, while UniKA represents more than 10 Korean commercial banks.
Stablecoins sit at the center of the plan
Project Pangea will study direct payment-versus-payment swaps using compliant euro and South Korean won stablecoins. Under that model, both sides of an FX trade settle at the same time or do not settle at all. The design seeks to reduce settlement risk for banks and businesses.
The group plans to use ISO 20022 messaging and existing Swift infrastructure, rather than ask banks to replace their core systems. Chainlink would provide data, interoperability and orchestration tools, while FairSquareLab would provide onchain FX settlement technology and the Pangea L1 Network.
“This is not just a POC,” said Niki Ariyasinghe, Chainlink’s vice president of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. “Everyone’s coming in with their eyes wide open.”
Existing bank rails remain part of the design
The project does not ask banks to buy crypto or move away from familiar payment messaging systems. Instead, banks would send instructions through Swift, and Chainlink infrastructure would translate those instructions into onchain settlement actions.
Chainlink said Project Pangea will support atomic FX transactions, instant T+0 settlement and access to onchain liquidity. The settlement layer would use Pangea AMM smart contracts on chains such as Ethereum, Polygon and Pangea L1.
As previously reported by crypto.news, SWIFT has also explored blockchain-based systems for global payments as stablecoins grow in scale. In another recent update, crypto.news covered BIS tokenization trials that showed atomic settlement across seven central banks and more than 40 financial institutions.
LINK price and market context
Chainlink’s LINK token traded at $7.59, down 3.2% over 24 hours, according to crypto.news market data. The same data showed a 24-hour trading volume of about $246 million and a market cap near $5.68 billion.
The bank settlement plan adds to Chainlink’s broader push into institutional infrastructure. Previously, crypto.news explored Chainlink’s CCIP stack after it passed $110 billion in total value secured across cross-chain tokens and DeFi data feeds.
Project Pangea also fits a broader shift toward stablecoin settlement in corporate payments. Stablecoins have gained attention because they can move value outside normal banking hours. For banks, the key test will be whether the model can meet compliance, risk and liquidity standards at scale.
“If I’m sending money to you and it’s lost in transit for quite some time, you don’t receive it, and that money isn’t able to be used,” said Ariyasinghe. “To reduce that time as much as possible, for customers to access that money absolutely as fast as possible, has to be a good thing.”
