South Korea Opens Path for Blockchain-Backed Stocks and Bonds in 2027
South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) has proposed regulations to allow tokenized stocks, bonds, and funds to be issued and circulated on blockchain infrastructure from February 4, 2027. The move is part of the country's effort to deepen institutional blockchain use across one of Asia's largest capital markets.
The proposed framework will initially focus on private money-market funds and bonds for institutional investors, trust-based tokenization of unlisted stocks, and publicly offered fractional-investment securities. Later phases could introduce onchain settlement linked to stablecoins, depending on the results of earlier phases, technological development, and pending stablecoin legislation.
The framework keeps conventional market controls firmly in place, requiring distributed ledgers to be shared among at least two account-management entities alongside the Korea Securities Depository. Firms allowed to issue tokenized securities and manage customer accounts directly would face a minimum equity-capital requirement of $3 million (4 billion KRW), alongside staffing requirements for compliance, account management, and technology.