SEOUL — South Korea is moving to reduce regulatory uncertainty surrounding blockchain as governments and financial institutions worldwide accelerate efforts to bring tokenized assets into mainstream markets.
Officials from South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT and Financial Services Commission said clearer rules, common definitions across government and more coordinated regulation will be critical to supporting investment and commercial adoption of blockchain technologies.
Speaking at a National Assembly forum in Seoul, Park Ji-hyun, director general of digital society planning at the science ministry, said companies continue to face uncertainty over how distributed ledgers, decentralized identity systems and other blockchain applications fit within existing regulations.
“We have heard many views that business is difficult because nothing is clearly defined and uncertainty remains,” Park said. “We are working to resolve that uncertainty.”
The ministry is also examining digital-asset legislation while supporting blockchain applications beyond cryptocurrency, including public services, ports, agriculture and food systems.
From crypto regulation to financial infrastructure
The comments come as South Korea increasingly treats blockchain not simply as a cryptocurrency issue, but as potential infrastructure for capital markets and the wider digital economy.
That shift is already moving into implementation.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission this month unveiled a three-stage roadmap for tokenized securities covering conventional assets including stocks, bonds and investment funds. Legislative amendments recognizing tokenized securities are scheduled to take effect in February 2027, with regulators ultimately aiming to develop infrastructure capable of supporting securities issuance, trading and settlement on-chain.
The roadmap builds on legislation passed earlier this year establishing a legal basis for security tokens, moving South Korea beyond preliminary experimentation toward a formal market framework.
The Bank of Korea is pursuing a parallel effort through Project Hangang, which has tested tokenized bank deposits using wholesale central bank digital currency infrastructure. The initiative is designed to explore how tokenized money and assets could eventually operate within the country’s financial system.
In a July policy paper, the central bank estimated the global asset-tokenization market at more than $50 billion as of the end of March and highlighted growing experimentation with tokenized government bonds, loans, money-market funds and alternative investments.
A global race toward tokenization
South Korea’s push is part of a broader race among major financial centers to determine how traditional assets will operate on blockchain-based infrastructure.
Nasdaq’s venture arm this week announced a $100 million investment in Payward, the parent company of Kraken, alongside deeper cooperation around infrastructure for tokenized equities.
The London Stock Exchange is also preparing products representing major UK-listed equities on digital infrastructure. The tokens are expected to be backed one-for-one by underlying shares, although the initial structure will not provide all of the voting and dividend rights associated with direct ownership of conventional shares.
Central banks are adapting as well.
European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel recently argued that central banks need to respond as more financial activity moves onto distributed ledgers, pointing to initiatives including South Korea’s Project Hangang as examples of emerging tokenized monetary infrastructure.
Together, these developments suggest the global debate is moving beyond whether blockchain will play a role in mainstream finance toward a more practical question: how that role should be governed.
The regulatory race
For governments, regulatory clarity is increasingly becoming part of the competition for technology companies, capital and financial innovation.
India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this week that technology companies need stronger mechanisms to navigate increasingly complex international rules around areas including asset tokenization and agentic artificial intelligence.
The United States is confronting similar questions as lawmakers debate legislation intended to clarify how digital assets are classified and divide oversight responsibilities among federal regulators. The proposals remain contested as banks, cryptocurrency companies and policymakers debate market safeguards and the future structure of the sector.
South Korea is also dealing with another layer of complexity: the convergence of blockchain and artificial intelligence.
Seo Na-yoon, director of the Financial Services Commission’s Virtual Asset Division, said ministries need shared definitions to prevent conflicting standards across government. Regulators are examining how AI agents could operate within financial services, including rules surrounding customer consent, personal and credit information, cybersecurity and sector-specific requirements.
“We will coordinate so that definitions do not diverge,” Seo said.
That coordination could become increasingly important as financial institutions begin combining AI agents, digital identity, tokenized assets and blockchain-based settlement within the same financial architecture.
The larger signal for governments
South Korea’s approach reflects a broader evolution in digital-asset policy.
For years, much of the regulatory debate focused on cryptocurrencies, investor protection and speculative trading. The emerging challenge is considerably wider: how governments should build the legal, monetary and financial infrastructure for an economy in which conventional securities, payments and other assets increasingly operate on digital networks.
That creates a difficult balance.
Governments seeking to attract investment need frameworks flexible enough to accommodate rapidly evolving technologies. At the same time, regulators must address market manipulation, financial crime, cybersecurity, data protection and potential systemic risks as digital assets become more closely connected with traditional finance.
South Korea appears to be betting that greater regulatory clarity can help bridge those objectives.
If Seoul succeeds, its emerging framework could offer an important case study for governments confronting the same question worldwide: how to capture the efficiencies of tokenized finance without importing new risks into the financial system.
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