According to South Korea's KIPRIS (Korea Patent Information Retrieval Service), Tether recently filed seven trademark applications in South Korea, including the "tether" logo and the gold-backed stablecoin "tether gold".
Industry insiders in the virtual asset sector speculate that Tether's move may be a preparatory step toward establishing a local subsidiary and entering the South Korean market. The upcoming Digital Asset Basic Act is expected to require overseas stablecoin issuers to set up domestic branches in South Korea for distribution activities, and Tether's actions are seen as a preemptive move ahead of its competitor Circle. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire visited South Korea in April and remarked that the country is one of the world's most dynamic virtual asset markets. (Chosun)