Shinhan Asset Management Launches Tokenized Fund on Solana Blockchain

South Korean financial giant Shinhan Asset Management is developing a pilot tokenized fund denominated in Korean won (KRW) on the Solana blockchain. This product, focused on ultra-short-term bonds for offshore institutional investors, replicates the structure of BlackRock's BUIDL fund.

The project involves a four-party agreement between Shinhan, the Solana Foundation, fintech platform Etherfuse, and decentralized exchange Orca. As part of the proof of concept (PoC), the partners are testing the entire operational cycle, from customer verification (KYC) and anti-money laundering AML procedures to foreign exchange compliance.

Orca's role in this chain will be to provide on-chain liquidity for asset conversions, fully replicating the institutional standards embedded in BlackRock's business model. Solana was selected because of its current position in the tokenization market. The network ranks third globally by the value of distributed RWA assets, with $3.86 billion, and leads by the number of launched projects, with 2,678 compared with Ethereum's 2,268.

The market capitalization of stablecoins on the network exceeds $15.9 billion. Shinhan is deploying its product within an ecosystem where BlackRock's architecture has already proven effective in practice. The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund operates on Solana with $695 million in assets, making it the network's undisputed leader.