Why
A '₩5 trillion saved' headline is the kind of number a PoC exists to take apart rather than repeat. In the National Assembly Budget Office's own model it is not a forecast — it is one cell: the top-right corner where the substitution rate is its highest (30%) and the fee spread its widest (the optimistic 1.5% merchant vs 0.1% stablecoin). The same table's opposite corner — 5% substitution, the conservative 0.6% spread — is ₩0.37T. Same formula, ~14× apart. The single defensible output of this model is the grid, and the single most-misleading way to report it is to quote the maximum. Building it makes that unavoidable to see.
The second thing the model teaches is what a fee is. The formula's last term is (merchant fee − stablecoin fee), and every won of that 'saving' was a won of someone's revenue — the card issuer's. So the number does not describe wealth created; it describes a transfer from issuers to merchants. The report is careful here in a way the headline is not: the issuer's loss is not one-to-one with net income, because a shrinking card business also sheds its own costs (points, mileage, rewards funded out of that fee). A faithful model carries both legs — the gross transfer and the partial cost-offset — instead of presenting a merchant gain as a system-wide gain.
It lands on the Jayverse economics thesis directly: a payment rail's fee is not friction to be wished away, it is an income statement. This pairs with the on-chain settlement-funding card (Visa × Credit Coop) as the other side of the same coin — that one is where stablecoin rails add a financing layer, this one is where they subtract an intermediary's fee — and both are only honest when you say whose revenue moves. The report's second half (volatility spillover) is a separate, data-science-shaped study: a Diebold-Yilmaz-style total connectedness index that sat at ~34% on average but rose to ~50% during the Feb–Mar stress window, which is its own PoC about when 'linkage is limited' stops being true.
How it works
The formula is the whole model
annual saving = card volume × substitution rate × (merchant fee − stablecoin fee)
Every output is that one line evaluated on a grid. The report fixes card volume at 2025 credit+debit ₩1,225.1T and varies the other two:
| Fee scenario | Merchant fee | Stablecoin fee | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 1.1% | 0.5% | 0.6% |
| Base | 1.3% | 0.3% | 1.0% |
| Optimistic | 1.5% | 0.1% | 1.4% |
The grid, not the headline
| Substitution → | 5% | 30% |
|---|---|---|
| Conservative (0.6%) | ₩0.37T (the floor) | ₩2.2T |
| Optimistic (1.4%) | ₩0.86T | ₩5.15T (the headline) |
The reported ₩5.15T and ₩0.37T are the two opposite corners of this surface — a ~14× spread driven entirely by which assumptions you pick. Quoting only the max is choosing the corner.
'Saving' names a transfer, and the transfer is not net
The last term is a fee, and a fee is revenue to whoever charged it. So the merchant's gain is the card issuer's loss — first-order, a transfer, not creation. But the issuer's net loss is smaller than the fee delta: a smaller card business also spends less on the points/mileage/rewards it funds out of that fee. A model that reports the merchant leg without the issuer's cost-offset overstates the system-wide effect. The channels most likely to substitute first — online checkout, cross-border remittance, platform commerce — are where that erosion would show up before general retail.
The other half: volatility spillover (a separate, data-science PoC)
Using Dec-2023→Jun-2026 data on USDT, USDC, BTC, KRW/USD, KOSPI, and the 3Y KTB rate, the report ran a dynamic connectedness (Diebold-Yilmaz-style) analysis. Findings worth modeling: stablecoin↔stablecoin linkage is high (USDT→USDC spillover ~43%), stablecoin↔FX is moderate (avg ~4%, max ~8–10%), and the total connectedness index averaged ~34% but spiked to ~49.86% during the Feb–Mar stress (BTC drop + Middle-East conflict). The takeaway is conditional: linkage looks limited in calm and rises in stress — exactly when a stability claim matters.
The four policy levers (context for any design)
Micro: (1) reserves ≥100% of issuance with cash/short-T-bill composition rules; (2) yield/rewards allowed but capped, to prevent over-issuance. Macro: (3) a 'significant stablecoin' designation (MiCA-style) carrying extra capital/liquidity, stress tests, disclosure, and issuance caps when usage is broad; (4) financial-stability measures aimed at the high-usage significant coins.
Where this lands in Jayverse
Build the sensitivity model as an economics PoC (the grid is the deliverable, not a number), pair it with the on-chain settlement-funding card as the 'fee subtracted vs financing added' two-sider, and route the spillover half to the data-science track (ds-var-cointegration, ds-time-series-arima) as a real connectedness-index exercise. Cross-ref: stablecoin-mcap-is-repackaged-money, what-needs-a-stablecoin, receipt-is-not-settlement.
Where it lands in Jayverse
- Number: publish the sensitivity grid, not the headline cell. Any Number reading that models a fee "saving" ships the full assumption table (substitution rate x fee spread) alongside the single number, licensed and versioned like the tokenized-index pattern.
- Auditor: check that a saving claim names whose revenue moved. Apply the transfer-vs-creation distinction as a standing rule — a merchant's gain is the issuer's loss minus a cost offset, and the Auditor row should require that split before a fee comparison is published.
- Bridge/Token: model JYVE's own fee changes the same way. Before any AMM or bridge fee adjustment ships, state the substitution assumption and which counterparty's revenue it displaces, rather than quoting a single savings figure.
Key expressions
| Expression | 뜻 · 쓰이는 자리 |
|---|---|
| sensitivity table | 민감도 표(가정을 바꿔가며 결과를 보여주는 표) · 여러 시나리오의 결과를 비교할 때. "one cell of a sensitivity table" |
| the conservative corner | (표에서) 가장 보수적인 값이 나오는 구석 · 낙관적 값과 대비해 최소치를 가리킬 때. "the conservative corner is ₩0.37T" |
| quote the maximum | 최댓값(가장 유리한 값) 하나만 인용하다 · 전체 범위 대신 극단값만 뽑아 말할 때. "the most-misleading way to report it is to quote the maximum" |
| wished away | (바란다고) 없앨 수 있는 것처럼 취급하다 · 실제로는 없앨 수 없는 비용을 가리킬 때. "friction to be wished away" |
| income statement | 손익계산서 · 수수료를 회계적 관점으로 비유할 때. "it is an income statement" |
| cost-offset | 비용 상쇄(줄어든 비용으로 손실을 일부 메움) · 매출 감소가 비용 감소로 일부 상쇄될 때. "the issuer's cost-offset" |
| shed its own costs | (사업 축소와 함께) 비용도 덜어내다 · 매출이 줄면서 관련 비용도 함께 줄어들 때. "a smaller card business also sheds its own costs" |
| funded out of | ~에서 자금이 충당되다 · 특정 재원에서 비용을 지불할 때. "rewards funded out of that fee" |
| spillover | (영향이) 번져나가는 것, 전이 · 한 자산의 변동성이 다른 자산으로 옮겨갈 때. "volatility spillover" |
| erosion | 서서히 깎여나감, 잠식 · 수익이나 기반이 점진적으로 줄어드는 것. "that erosion would show up before general retail" |
| FX | 외환(Foreign Exchange) · 스테이블코인과 다른 자산 간 환변동성 연계를 다룰 때. "stablecoin↔FX is moderate (avg ~4%, max ~8–10%)" |
| KOSPI | 한국종합주가지수(Korea Composite Stock Price Index) · 변동성 연계성 분석에 포함된 한국 주가지수. "USDT, USDC, BTC, KRW/USD, KOSPI, and the 3Y KTB rate" |
| KTB | 한국 국고채(Korea Treasury Bond) · 3년물 국채 금리를 연계성 분석 변수로 사용. "the 3Y KTB rate" |
| MiCA | EU 가상자산시장 규제(Markets in Crypto-Assets) · '유의 스테이블코인' 지정 방식의 모델로 언급. "a 'significant stablecoin' designation (MiCA-style)" |
| NABO | 국회예산정책처(National Assembly Budget Office) · 이 절감액 추정 보고서를 작성한 한국 국회 산하 기관. "Confirm figures against the NABO report before citing" |