Hyundai Eyes Avalanche Expansion After Successful Pilot

Hyundai Card appears to be moving toward a much more ambitious phase of its blockchain strategy after successfully testing stablecoin-based corporate payments on Avalanche.

Heejung Nam, head of Payments and business development at Hyundai Card, stressed that Hyundai now has to demonstrate that the system can work beyond a relatively small proof of concept.

“We have to prove the entire operation model works at scale,” Nam said, according to Avalanche. “What happens if we can scale up? Then the economic model works.”

Hyundai is now focused on whether the infrastructure can handle the much larger transaction volumes and operational complexity required by Hyundai Motor Group.

Hyundai’s seven-minute Avalanche transfer

Hyundai Card announced in July that it had successfully completed a proof of concept involving a real cross-border payment between Hyundai Motor America and Hyundai Motor Mexico.

The transaction was relatively small (roughly $20,000). However, it was notable because Hyundai was moving actual corporate funds.

Hyundai Motor America first converted $20,000 into Tether’s dollar-pegged $USDT stablecoin. The $USDT was then transferred to Hyundai Motor’s Mexican operation over Avalanche. The stablecoin tokens were then converted into U.S. dollars.

According to Hyundai Card, the complete process took an average of roughly seven minutes. Hyundai said a comparable transaction would normally require at least three to four hours with the help of traditional banking infrastructure.

The project brought together Hyundai Card, Hyundai Motor, Tether, Avalanche, and blockchain payments infrastructure company Axiom.

According to an Avalanche executive, the experiment involved genuine intercompany settlement rather than a simulated blockchain transaction.

Large corporations have conducted blockchain proofs of concept for years, but many have stopped at simple demonstrations.

The Avalanche pilot could evolve from an isolated blockchain experiment into infrastructure used for routine corporate treasury activity.

For now, Hyundai has not announced a group-wide deployment or provided a timeline for full commercialization.