Brokerages Rush to Secure Early Lead in South Korean Security-Token Market

Mirae Asset Group has taken control of Korbit, a major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, after acquiring the remaining stake on July 24. The company bought 28,495,701 shares for 141.37 billion won ($102.4 million), becoming the largest shareholder.

Korbit is being rebranded as Digital X under Mirae Asset's banner of Mirae Asset 3.0. Park Hyeon-joo, global strategy officer at Mirae Asset Group, wrote that Digital X will take the lead in a sweeping wave of change and build a new investment ecosystem centered on tokenization of real-world assets, security tokens, stablecoins, and integration of traditional and digital assets.

Large brokerages are racing to secure an early lead in the security-token business before the Electronic Securities Act and Capital Markets Act take effect next February. Korea Investment & Securities has invested in Coinone, while Hanwha Investment & Securities and Samsung affiliates have increased their stakes in Dunamu.

The industry is intensifying its focus on building issuance and trading platforms for security tokens. Brokerages are moving not only to acquire stakes in cryptocurrency exchanges but also to build security-token infrastructure. Mirae Asset Securities has completed a security-token mainnet through the Next Finance Initiative, while Samsung Securities sent requests for proposals to major operators to build its own security-token platform.