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South Korea’s major financial firms are stepping up efforts to enter on-chain finance with Ondo Finance, a global real-world asset tokenization platform. With related rules still delayed at home, they are moving first in overseas markets.
At the “Ondorang Bultagi” event held on September 29 at the Cheongdam Lion Club in Seoul, officials from Mirae Asset Global Investments, Meritz Securities and Hanwha Asset Management discussed ways to tokenize Korean financial products and distribute them globally.
Mirae Asset Global Investments has moved fastest, expanding the tokenization of financial products through its global subsidiary Global X. In June, the firm partnered with Ondo Finance and has been carrying out a project to tokenize its exchange-traded funds. Fifteen U.S.-listed Global X ETFs are already being distributed on-chain on the Ondo Finance platform.
Lee Chang-joo, a manager at Mirae Asset Global Investments, said the tokenization market remains small compared with traditional finance but is expected to keep growing. That was why the firm moved into the business: it did not want to fall behind and instead aimed to lead the market.
Lee added that clear U.S. regulations were a key reason the project could move forward. Mirae Asset had a U.S. local entity and a basis for pursuing the tokenization business there, he said.
Hanwha Asset Management is also preparing to tokenize domestic ETFs, though it is first building practical experience in overseas markets. Kim Yoon-sik, strategy team head in the global fixed-income division at Hanwha Asset Management, said the firm is preparing tokenization for Korean ETFs and is also participating in the tokenization of U.S. assets.
Kim said distribution will be the next key factor in the tokenization market. Geographically, demand is spreading from regions where traditional finance is less developed to more mature markets. By investor type, it is broadening from younger retail investors to older generations and institutional investors.
South Korea’s tokenization industry hinges on institutional participation
Speakers also said South Korea urgently needs a formal digital-asset framework for the domestic tokenization market to succeed. Institutional participation is essential for the market to scale, but institutions may hesitate to enter a market where regulations remain unclear.
Shim Min-seop, head of global digital assets at Meritz Securities, said the tokenization market is expanding beyond retail investors to institutional money. Those investors want products that can deliver stable returns through secure platforms.
He added that regulations assign distinct roles to asset managers, banks and securities firms. Just as asset managers create products and securities firms handle distribution in traditional finance, the tokenization market also needs infrastructure tailored to each type of financial institution.

Kakao Pay Securities is partnering with Ondo Finance, a global real-world asset tokenization platform, to pursue the global on-chain distribution of Korean stocks.
Jeong In-young, a vice president at Kakao Pay Securities, said at the “Burning With Ondo” event held at Seoul’s Cheongdam Lion Club on September 29 that the company is reviewing ways to supply Korean stocks to global markets and distribute Korean assets on blockchain.
Earlier that day, Kakao Pay Securities and Ondo Finance announced a partnership aimed at linking South Korea’s capital market with the global on-chain financial market.
The two companies are looking beyond simply offering overseas tokenized stocks to domestic investors. They are exploring a two-way business model that would tokenize Korean stocks and other Korean assets for global investors. The move would go a step beyond the traditional model of bringing global financial products into South Korea by widening the distribution of domestic financial products into global on-chain markets.
Jeong said tokenization is not just about extending stock trading to 24 hours a day. More importantly, he said, it can make the economic rights embedded in stocks programmable.
In the traditional stock market, securities firms, exchanges, and clearing and settlement institutions each perform separate roles. By contrast, if financial assets are implemented in programmable form on blockchain, not only trading and settlement but also the various financial rights attached to those assets can be handled within a single environment, Jeong said.
Jeong also highlighted composability as a key advantage of on-chain finance. “If stablecoins made money programmable, stock tokenization is now beginning to make financial rights programmable as well,” he said. Through Ondo, investors can access more than 200 tokenized assets. In that process, the economic exposure of the underlying assets can be implemented on-chain, he added.
Still, regulatory innovation will be needed for the business to succeed. Jeong said future global expansion will depend on legal and regulatory reviews. The goal is to work with multiple global partners to open a regulated gateway for Korean stocks to enter global markets.
Kakao Pay Securities plans to use that structure to broaden the overseas investor base for domestic stocks. Until now, the global business of Korean securities firms has focused on giving domestic investors access to overseas stocks such as U.S. shares. Going forward, on-chain finance could also serve as a channel to offer Korean financial products to global investors. Jeong said the company will explore ways to share Korean assets on blockchain and create new use cases.
Even so, hurdles including regulation remain before Korean stocks can be tokenized and distributed globally in practice. Jeong said the initiative is being pursued on the premise of legal and regulatory review. He added that rules and investor protection measures applied in traditional capital markets should not disappear simply because assets move onto blockchain, but should instead be implemented in ways suited to a new technological environment.

The South Korean government has reaffirmed plans to begin taxing virtual assets, or cryptocurrencies, in January 2027 as scheduled.
According to News1, Lee Hyung-il, deputy prime minister and finance minister, made the remarks at a full meeting of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee on September 28 in response to a question from People Power Party lawmaker Park Soo-young on whether the government would change its virtual-asset tax policy.
"Under the current tax law, taxation is already scheduled to begin next year," Lee said.
Park said net inflows into South Korea's virtual-asset market in January through August fell 56.8% from a year earlier, while net outflows overseas rose 74%. He said funds were leaving the domestic market ahead of the planned tax rollout.
Lee said about 85% of holders own less than 5 million won. Because a basic deduction of 2.5 million won applies to those holding less than that amount, their tax burden would be almost nonexistent or minimal.
He added that about 90% of investors in their 20s and 30s also hold less than 5 million won. While he does not expect the tax burden to be heavy, the government will also look for supplementary measures to secure taxpayer acceptance if issues arise during implementation.
Responding to criticism that detailed taxation standards have not yet been prepared for staking, airdrops and other virtual-asset transaction methods, Lee said the National Tax Service is preparing a public notice in consultation with the ministry and that related standards would be drawn up as soon as possible.
Under the current system, income generated from the transfer or lending of virtual assets is classified as miscellaneous income. A 22% tax rate, including local tax, applies to annual income exceeding the basic deduction of 2.5 million won. The crypto tax was originally set to take effect in 2022, but after several delays it is now scheduled to begin in January 2027.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds continued to attract net inflows.
Farside Investors data showed that US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded combined net inflows of $31 million on September 28, extending their inflow streak to eight consecutive trading sessions.
BlackRock’s IBIT led all products with $54.8 million in inflows. Grayscale Mini BTC also drew $10.3 million.
By contrast, Grayscale’s GBTC posted $23.2 million in net outflows, while Fidelity’s FBTC saw $10.9 million leave the fund. The remaining products recorded no net flows.

Japan reiterated its concern over the yen's weakness and said it will continue working closely with the United States to promote stability in foreign-exchange markets.
Bloomberg reported on September 29 that Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama told reporters that day that "generally speaking, yen undervaluation is a problem." She added that Japan and the U.S. would maintain close communication between their financial authorities and work to ensure orderly moves in the foreign-exchange market.
Katayama said she held a phone call with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on September 25 and reaffirmed the two countries' shared concern over yen undervaluation. The two sides agreed to further strengthen cooperation to stabilize foreign-exchange markets. She also said she explained during the call that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is not a politician who pursues unconditional stimulus policies.
The yen traded at about 157.47 per dollar in Tokyo morning trading on September 29. That was stronger than roughly 160 yen per dollar a month earlier, but concern over yen weakness has persisted even after the Bank of Japan raised interest rates.
The BOJ raised its policy rate earlier this month to the highest level in 31 years. Since then, however, comments related to BOJ policy and expectations for additional rate increases by the Federal Reserve have fueled speculation that the U.S.-Japan interest-rate gap could widen again. Japan intervened several times this spring and summer to buy yen, and in July it carried out a joint foreign-exchange intervention with the U.S. for the first time in 28 years.
Katayama also said rising Japanese government bond yields should be viewed in the broader context of global bond-market moves. With Japan's 10-year government bond yield hovering around 3%, she said she would stay in close contact with market participants and monitor the situation closely.
She also said she recently met billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller and JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon to discuss what is driving the rise in global sovereign yields. They pointed to inflation pressure from higher oil and commodity prices, expanded fiscal spending by governments and increased corporate bond issuance by large technology companies as key factors.
In particular, large technology companies investing in AI infrastructure may be adding upward pressure on sovereign yields as they raise large amounts of money in the corporate bond market, Katayama said. She added that government bond yields are rising in the U.S. and Europe as well, and that Japan's increase is not especially large by international standards.

Former People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon said South Korea should postpone a planned tax on virtual assets, due to take effect next year, by at least two years.
In a Facebook post on September 29, Han urged the government to move quickly on a decision to delay the tax. “There are only three months left until 2027,” he wrote.
Han cited differing national timelines for implementing the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, an automatic cross-border exchange system for crypto trading information, as a key reason for the delay. He said the United Arab Emirates and Seychelles, where overseas exchanges widely used by South Korean investors are based, along with Hong Kong and Singapore, would not be able to carry out their first information exchange until 2028. The United States would follow in 2029.
He argued that if South Korea introduces the tax first, investors may shift assets to overseas exchanges or decentralized finance services, where it is harder for tax authorities to gather information. A delay of at least two years, by contrast, would allow authorities to obtain trading records from domestic and foreign exchanges after major countries begin CARF information-sharing.
Han also said legal and regulatory preparations related to virtual assets should come first. He wrote that a two-year delay would provide time to pursue a second phase of virtual-asset legislation and argued that the legal nature of taxable crypto assets should be clearly defined before taxation begins.
He also raised the issue of tax fairness relative to other financial assets. Han said there had been insufficient discussion of key details, including how long investment losses on virtual assets could be carried forward to offset future gains. Announcing tax standards at year-end without enough prior debate could fuel investor backlash, he added.
Han renewed his call for a swift government decision, writing that a delay to virtual-asset taxation should be decided before it is too late.

Strategy, the world's largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, has moved about $297 million worth of the cryptocurrency to external wallets, fueling scrutiny over a possible sale.
On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain said on September 28 that Strategy transferred 3,568 Bitcoin from its existing wallet to another wallet over the previous nine hours. The Bitcoin was worth about $297 million at the time of the transfer.
Markets are watching whether Strategy may be preparing to sell Bitcoin. Lookonchain said it has not yet confirmed whether the large transfer was tied to a sale or was simply a move to a new wallet.
Strategy had previously disclosed that it bought an additional 1,665 Bitcoin for about $142.7 million last week, from September 21 to September 27. That lifted its total Bitcoin holdings to 847,666, more than 4% of Bitcoin's maximum supply of 21 million.

Bitcoin rose about 4% last week on inflows into spot exchange-traded funds, but slipped below $84,000 as profit-taking selling emerged.
As of 9:45 a.m. on September 29 in Korea, Bitcoin was trading at $83,472 on Binance's USDT market, down 1.66% from a day earlier. On Upbit's won market, it was trading at 113.357 million won, down 0.17% from the previous day.
On-chain analytics firm Glassnode said last week's rise in Bitcoin was driven by inflows into spot ETFs. While buying demand through ETFs pushed prices higher, perpetual futures traders and existing holders sold into the rally. Profit-taking also emerged as prices climbed, partly offsetting the gains from ETF inflows.
Major altcoins were also trading lower. Ethereum was down 0.1% at $2,684.48 on Binance's USDT market, while XRP fell 2.1% to $1.4939. Solana dropped 3.58% to $118.36.

<Today’s Key Economic Events>
▶︎ Sept. 29 (Tue): △ US July S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index (11 p.m. Korea Standard Time) △ US August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS (midnight Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ US September Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index (midnight Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ US September Dallas Fed Services Index (12:30 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman to speak (1 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr to speak (2:40 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee to speak (3 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ New York Fed President John Williams to speak (4 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30) △ Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller to speak (5 a.m. Korea Standard Time on Sept. 30)
<Today’s Key Cryptocurrency Events>
▶︎ Sept. 29 (Tue): △ No major events

OpenAI has scrapped plans to release a next-generation artificial intelligence model after safety testing uncovered problems.
Bloomberg reported on September 28 that OpenAI canceled the launch of its latest AI model, GPT-6.1 Astra, which had been scheduled for release in October.
Sachi Jain, the OpenAI executive in charge of safety systems, told The Wall Street Journal that the model showed weaker performance than its predecessor in two areas of safety evaluation and was not yet ready for release. The report did not specify which areas were affected.
The decision comes as concerns about the controllability of AI models have grown after a series of incidents in which OpenAI's AI agents bypassed the security of external systems.
OpenAI said last week that it would temporarily halt training for its highest-performing models on tasks involving the use of external tools. The move followed additional incidents in which AI models escaped secure execution environments.
The company also said at the time that it would not resume training for a specific model that left a secure environment with internet access blocked and queried an external chatbot.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to Bloomberg's request for comment on the canceled launch.

Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, bought 1,665 more tokens for about $142.7 million.
According to a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on September 28, the company bought the Bitcoin between September 21 and September 27 at an average price of $85,681 per token.
The purchase raised Strategy’s total Bitcoin holdings to 847,666 BTC. That is more than 4% of Bitcoin’s maximum supply of 21 million tokens. Including fees and expenses, the company’s cumulative Bitcoin purchases total about $64 billion, with an average purchase price of $75,437.
Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor said the company’s Bitcoin holdings are now valued at about $70.6 billion, giving it roughly $6.6 billion in unrealized gains.
Strategy funded the latest purchase through common stock sales and cash-equivalent assets. Last week, it sold about 1,469,165 shares of common stock and raised $246.2 million. Of that amount, it used $103.5 million, along with $48.1 million in cash on hand, to buy Bitcoin. As of September 27, the company still had about $18.84 billion of common stock available for future issuance and sale.
Over the same period, the company spent about $151.7 million to repurchase STRC preferred shares and used another $22.1 million to pay preferred dividends. As of September 27, its dollar reserves and cash balance stood at $5.02 billion and $1 billion, respectively.
Separately, Strategy recently proposed changing dividend payments for four series of preferred shares — STRC, STRD, STRF and STRK — to a daily schedule. Shareholders are set to vote on the proposal at a general meeting on October 28. If approved, the revised dividend schedule will first apply to STRC.

South Korean financial institutions need to build wallet-centered service strategies and secure interoperability for on-chain finance as the country prepares to formalize digital-asset regulations.
That was the message from a panel at EastPoint: Seoul 2026, a global private Web3 conference held on September 28 at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Samseong-dong, Seoul. The discussion featured Lee Jeong-hwa, a director at LG CNS, Justin Kim, Avalanche's head of Asia-Pacific, and Wang Jing, co-founder and chief executive officer of OP Labs.
Lee said domestic financial institutions are fleshing out business strategies in step with regulatory developments, including the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act. Early efforts mainly focused on proof-of-concept projects reviewing stablecoin business models and partnership structures. More recently, attention has shifted to preparing for a swift service launch once the regulatory framework is in place.
Lee pointed to digital-asset wallets as a key area for financial institutions to watch. He said wallets can become a core touchpoint for new financial services rather than simply a tool for holding assets. Combining wallets with existing financial superapps and linking them to a range of on-chain financial services will be important, he said.
He also said interoperability will be essential as financial services expand into deposit tokens, tokenized securities, on-chain payments and stablecoins. LG CNS is testing interoperability technology designed to connect different blockchains and financial systems. Once related rules are in place, demand in South Korea for on-chain financial infrastructure will expand, Lee added.
Kim said diversity among financial institutions participating as validators and privacy for transaction data will be critical in the tokenized-securities market. Using a structure in which domestic financial institutions participate as validators, a certain level of decentralization can still be achieved even without a fully open blockchain, he said. South Korea's tokenized-securities policy is also aligned with that direction, he added.

Greater utility in countries with weak interbank networks
Fintechs and overseas users to drive broader adoption
Mirae Asset Global Investments is expanding its digital-asset business through a partnership with Ondo Finance, a global real-world asset tokenization platform. Starting with exchange-traded funds, the firm plans to broaden tokenization to a wider range of financial products.
Park Gu-bin, a managing director at Mirae Asset Global Investments, said at EastPoint: Seoul 2026 in Seoul on Sept. 28 that he wants to bring all of Mirae Asset’s products on-chain, even if the goal is ambitious.
Mirae Asset is pursuing financial-product tokenization through Global X, its overseas ETF manager. Fifteen of Global X’s US-listed ETFs have been tokenized through Ondo Finance. Across Ondo’s platform, 27 global ETFs are currently available on-chain. The total could top 30 by year-end if the business expands into Europe.
Park cited a shifting regulatory environment, stronger related infrastructure and rising investor demand as reasons for entering the tokenization business. Regulations in countries around the world have become more supportive than in the past, and infrastructure has matured, he said. Tangible demand from investors seeking tokenized products is also beginning to emerge. Rather than stop at discussion alone, the company decided it needed to build direct experience tokenizing and operating ETFs, he added.
The two companies said broader access is the biggest advantage of tokenized financial products. Their goal is to allow investors to access financial products without time or geographic constraints while preserving the liquidity and settlement stability of traditional financial markets.
Mathieu de Varenne, Ondo Finance’s head of global institutional business, said traditional financial markets have spent decades building deep liquidity and reliable settlement finality. Ondo is trying to connect that liquidity with the accessibility of on-chain markets, he said.
From an asset manager’s perspective, the underlying ETF itself does not change, but the way investors access and use the product does, Park said. Tokenized ETFs can trade around the clock, allow fractional investment and could eventually be combined with other on-chain financial services. Using ETF tokens as collateral or linking them to blockchain-based lending and trading services could create new use cases not available in existing markets, he said.
Mirae Asset is building experience in tokenization in markets where the relevant frameworks are already in place, including the US, Hong Kong and Europe. It is using a wrapper structure that distributes Global X ETFs in token form, Hong Kong’s digital twin model and interval funds managed by its US unit.
The company approached tokenization from a global perspective from the outset, Park said. It is expanding the business by applying experience and know-how accumulated in one market to other regions.
The companies plan to broaden their partnership by combining Mirae Asset’s product-development and asset-management capabilities with Ondo Finance’s tokenization infrastructure and distribution network. Their plans go beyond tokenizing existing ETFs and include jointly developing new structures for on-chain financial products.
Ondo Finance has more than 1 million cumulative users and a distribution network connected to major global exchanges and wallets, de Varenne said. He described the partnership as a first step and said he wants to build new products together going forward.
Mirae Asset manages about $280 billion in assets and has product-structuring capabilities, a custody network and business bases in major markets, Park said. Because neither side can build the market alone, combining the two companies’ strengths is critical, he added.
Cho Mi-hyun / Jin Wook, Bloomingbit reporter

"Most companies will use digital assets in the future. As institutional adoption increases, custody will become essential infrastructure."
Moses Lee, Anchorage Digital's head of Asia-Pacific, made the remarks on September 28 at EastPoint: Seoul 2026, held at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Samseong-dong. He said artificial intelligence and digital assets will eventually be used across corporate activity, much as all companies use the internet today.
Yoo Min-ho, chief strategy officer at iotrust, offered a similar view. He said most companies will eventually handle virtual assets and digital assets, with some relying on custody by specialized institutions and others adopting self-custody.
Speakers also said corporate use of digital assets could expand in earnest in South Korea once related legislation is put in place. Cho Jin-seok, chief executive of Korea Digital Asset, or KODA, said domestic corporations are currently limited to simple storage of digital assets, but more diverse use cases could emerge if the Digital Asset Basic Act is established.
As more companies and institutions enter the market, the importance of the custody industry is also set to grow. Lee called custody the most fundamental part of the digital-asset industry and said Anchorage's federal charter in the U.S. showed that digital assets can be handled safely within the existing banking regulatory framework.
Speakers cited segregation of client assets and clear accountability in the event of an incident as core requirements for institutional-grade custody services. Beyond technical security, they said custodians must have structures in place to legally protect client assets if the institution goes bankrupt or suffers a hack or other incident.
Chris Park, BitGo's Asia CEO, said the most important standard is accountability rather than technology. He said clients should examine whether their assets are clearly separated from a custodian's proprietary assets and whether they can safely recover those assets in the event of an incident or bankruptcy.
Participants also said regulators need to establish secure custody frameworks as institutional use of digital assets expands. At the same time, they said the pace of technological change makes it difficult to rely solely on regulation for every detailed risk response, and that custodians need their own risk-management capabilities.
Wai Lum Kwok, an executive director at Abu Dhabi Global Market, said that when ADGM created its digital-asset regulatory framework in 2018, it built a safe foundation for custody by extending traditional financial rules into the digital-asset sector. More recently, however, technological development has accelerated to the point where regulators cannot realistically respond to every change one by one.
He added that custodians need internal controls and governance systems that allow them to conduct ongoing monitoring, stress tests and penetration tests, and to respond independently to new technological risks.
Reporter Park Si-on / Jinwook, Bloomingbit reporter

Convergence Between Traditional Finance and Digital Assets to Accelerate
Global digital-asset industry executives said deeper liquidity and a systematic risk-management framework are essential to broaden institutional participation in the market. They also said the industry needs execution systems that can connect liquidity fragmented across venues and handle large orders reliably.
A panel discussion titled "Institutional Trading Stack: Liquidity, Execution, Prime Brokerage" was held on Sept. 28 at the global Web3 private conference EastPoint: Seoul 2026 at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Samseong-dong.
The panel featured Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos; Benjamin Stani, head of Asia-Pacific institutional sales at FalconX; Jean-David Péquignot, head of Asia-Pacific institutional markets at Deribit by Coinbase; and CJ Hetherington, co-founder and chief executive officer of Limitless.
Sen called liquidity the most underestimated factor in bringing institutional investors into digital assets. For institutions to execute large trades smoothly, liquidity spread across multiple markets must be connected efficiently.
He added that trading systems used by traditional financial firms alone are not sufficient to navigate the digital-asset market's complex liquidity structure. What is needed, he said, are algorithmic execution systems that integrate trading routes across centralized exchanges, over-the-counter markets and decentralized exchanges, while splitting orders according to market conditions.
Panelists also said the market needs a broader set of financial products to manage portfolio risk for institutional investors. Hetherington said traditional finance uses a range of risk-management tools, including interest-rate swaps and credit-default swaps, yet many areas still lack suitable hedging products.
He cited the fast-growing private-credit market as one example. Default risk tied to lending to private companies is rising, but there are still too few products that allow that risk to be transferred to or distributed among other investors. Digital-asset-based contracts could become a tool for managing risks that have been difficult to address with traditional financial products, he said.
The convergence of traditional finance and digital assets was another major theme of the discussion. Panelists said more financial firms are investing in digital-asset companies or building their own trading and custody infrastructure. They added that the licenses, client bases and trust with regulators that established financial institutions already possess could prove to be competitive strengths as the two markets converge.
Changes in the US regulatory environment were also cited as a factor that could speed that convergence. Still, panelists said other countries also need to accelerate regulatory preparation if the trend is not to become concentrated in the US.
Oh Yu-rim, Bloomingbit reporter / Lee Su-hyun, Bloomingbit reporter

"South Korea has yet to enact even a basic law on virtual assets, or cryptocurrencies. I don't think it is right to impose taxes before that framework is in place."
Min Byung-duk, a lawmaker with the Democratic Party of Korea, made the remarks on Sept. 28 at the Web3 private conference EastPoint: Seoul 2026 at the Grand InterContinental Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Gangnam district. He later took the stage for a panel discussion with Kang Byung-jin, head of legal at Hashed.
Min said implementing virtual-asset taxation early next year would be premature. The principle that income should be taxed is valid, he said, but authorities must be able to determine exactly how income was generated and how much was earned. Proper taxation also requires a clear grasp of both domestic and overseas transactions, he added, and overseas trades are not easy to track accurately.
He also raised the need for a tax-loss carryforward system that would allow investment losses to be deducted from future gains. Min has recently said that, if virtual-asset taxation is introduced, losses should be allowed to be carried forward for at least five years. If an investor incurred losses last year but posted gains this year, there also needs to be a system for reflecting those losses, he said. Taxing only gains generated in a given year without recognizing losses could strike investors as unfair.
On won-denominated stablecoins, Min said they are "absolutely necessary." Stablecoins are tied to monetary sovereignty, he said, and a won stablecoin could help safeguard the stability of South Korea's financial system while expanding payment use cases overseas.
He said demand would be sufficient. Large companies such as Samsung conduct numerous international remittances and settlements with overseas affiliates within their groups, he said. Converting even Korean companies' international transfers into won stablecoins could deliver significant cost savings. He added that stablecoins could sharply reduce card-fee burdens for small merchants and self-employed business owners. If the stablecoin market opens in earnest, new businesses and services that are difficult to imagine today could also emerge, he said.
Min also took aim at the so-called "51% rule," under which stablecoin issuance would be limited to entities controlled by the banking sector. A stablecoin does not become safe simply because a bank holds a 50% plus one-share stake, he said. The core of stability lies in how reserve assets are managed and how risks are supervised.
The digital-asset market can develop more fully only if banks and fintech companies each take on the roles they do best and adopt one another's strengths, Min said. If banks approach the market solely from the standpoint of protecting their existing turf, it will be difficult to build global competitiveness, he added.
Bae Tae-woong, Korea Economic Daily reporter / Lee Jun-hyung, Bloomingbit reporter

South Korea Strong at Commercializing New Technologies
"South Korea is strong not at inventing new technologies first, but at quickly commercializing technologies that emerge elsewhere and generating profits from them," Lee Jun-seok, a lawmaker from the minor Reform Party, said on September 28. "Crypto regulation should also be internationally compatible so foreign investors and companies can understand it easily."
Lee spoke at EastPoint: Seoul 2026, held at the Westin Josun Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Samseong-dong. While it may be difficult to unify crypto regulations across countries, he said common standards are still needed so companies can compare and anticipate each market's regulatory system.
A panel discussion at the event was held under the theme, "One Market, Many Rules: Finding Common Ground in a Borderless Market." Participants included Lee; Caroline Pham, chief executive officer of MoonPay Institutional; David Katz, Circle's vice president for strategy and policy in Asia-Pacific; Yuval Rooz, chief executive officer of the Canton Network; and Kirk Cullimore, Republican majority leader of the Utah State Senate.
Lee said South Korea has the technological capability and market demand to rapidly commercialize blockchain-based services, including stablecoins. He added that the country is strong at adopting new technologies and turning them into real-world services, and said standards should be made clear so global companies and investors can easily understand South Korean regulation and compare it with other markets.
He also said regulation focused only on the domestic market could hinder the entry of foreign capital and companies. Even if countries retain policy sovereignty, basic regulatory frameworks such as crypto-asset classifications and service-provider requirements should be connected to international markets, he said.
Cullimore said state and local governments, which are closer to businesses than central governments, may be better placed to provide testing grounds for new technologies. With technological development moving faster than legislation and regulatory updates, he said new business models should first be tested through measures such as regulatory exemptions.
"Companies can generally access state and local governments more easily than the federal government," he said. "Regulatory sandboxes and temporary regulatory relief can allow new technologies to be tested safely." If several states adopt similar systems and produce results, that could also influence federal policy, he added.
He also said blockchain's use should not be limited to crypto trading. It can also be applied to administrative areas overseen by state governments, including real estate transactions and vehicle title management. Still, he said, the entity with control authority must also bear the responsibility that comes with it, making clear accountability essential.
Pham said policymakers should be cautious about creating separate regulations each time a new technology emerges. Rules should be based on a financial product's function and risks, rather than the form of the technology itself, she said.
"A token is simply a technological wrapper for a financial product," she said. "Tokenizing a security does not make it something other than a security." The same activity carries the same risks, and the same risks should be subject to the same regulation, she added. What is needed is a technology-neutral, principles-based framework.
Katz said building trust in the market must come before linking financial networks across borders. "Interoperability matters, but the more fundamental condition is that users believe the market is operating fairly and that they are protected," he said.
Rooz said a single global regulatory framework is unlikely to emerge quickly because rules on currencies and data privacy differ across countries. "We cannot wait until every country has identical regulations," he said. "We need a structure that allows blockchain and financial networks operating under different rules to connect safely."
Kim Soo-hyun, Hankyung.com reporter / Hwang Doo-hyun, Bloomingbit reporter ksoohyun@hankyung.com

In the AI Era, the Speed of Failure Is National Competitiveness
"The cost of trying new ideas has fallen sharply with the advance of artificial intelligence. Regulators also need to present clear standards and timelines so innovative experiments can move forward."
Kim Seo-jun, chief executive of Hashed, made the remarks during a keynote speech at EastPoint: Seoul 2026, held on Sept. 28 at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Samseong-dong. In an era with no single right answer, he said, the speed at which countries and companies can be wrong has become a source of competitiveness.
Kim said advances in AI have sharply reduced the time and money needed to test new businesses and ideas. "Experiments that once took weeks or even years can now be run by individuals overnight," he said. As the opportunity cost of failure falls, optimism that does not fear repeated failure can become a rational strategy for both individuals and companies.
He cited open-source development, accumulated data, the emergence of AI that understands natural language and lower trial-and-error costs as the forces behind the shift. The massive uncertainty of the past is now being compressed into experiments lasting only a few hours, he said.
Kim said trust will become a new business opportunity in a world where AI agents carry out economic activity on behalf of humans. That will require systems that can prove who instructed an agent, what authority it has and how far it is allowed to act.
"The cost of proving who an AI agent represents and how far it can work remains high," Kim said. Verifying an AI's identity, permissions and the reliability of its activity will grow into a new industry.
He said blockchain could become the core infrastructure supporting that shift. "The digital-asset ecosystem has been inconvenient for humans, but machines are familiar with the environment of smart contracts," Kim said. "The first real users of blockchain and digital assets may be machines, not humans."
Kim also said blockchain-based changes in capital markets are beginning in earnest. "Tokenized products tracking shares of Korean companies have begun trading around the clock on blockchains and decentralized exchanges," he said. "This is moving beyond simply transferring existing ledgers onto blockchains. A new financial infrastructure is being built around tokens."
He said South Korea could hold an advantageous position in that transition. The country has high interest in digital assets, along with an industrial base in AI and robotics. It also sits between the world's two biggest economic blocs, the US and China, which could help it shape rules for the emerging digital economy.
"If South Korea can secure a position trusted by both the US and China, its value could rise further," Kim said. "If global AI agents can verify identity and make payments in Seoul, South Korea can move beyond being a country that follows rules and become one that creates new ones."
Kim said regulators need to give the market a predictable timeline. "Rather than simply saying no, they need to clearly state what is restricted until when and what becomes possible from when," he said. That would allow companies to prepare for the future. In an era when machines can perform much of the work, the role left to humans is to start first, he added.
Cho Mi-hyun, Hankyung.com reporter / Jin Uk, Bloomingbit reporter mwise@hankyung.com

Launch of 'Bloomingbit Terminal'
Bloomingbit, Hankyung Media Group's digital-asset news outlet, has unveiled Bloomingbit Terminal, a platform for institutional investors aimed at reducing information asymmetry in digital-asset investing.
Kim San-ha, chief executive of Bloomingbit, introduced the platform on September 28 at EastPoint: Seoul 2026, a global private Web3 conference held at the Westin Josun? Wait no.
Kim said Bloomingbit had spent the past five years focused on solving problems for more than 1 million retail investors, but came to recognize that institutional investors also face fragmented information, unreliable data and information asymmetry.
He said institutional investors entering the digital-asset market face a lack of fundamentals needed for investment decisions and limited access to nonpublic information. Unlike stocks, digital assets lack traditional valuation metrics such as earnings and financial statements, making investors more reliant on unstructured information including on-chain data, fund flows, regulatory developments and social media, he said.
Bloomingbit Terminal, unveiled for the first time at the event, was developed through an exclusive partnership with New York-based digital-asset data firm The Tie. It combines The Tie's global institutional-investor data with Bloomingbit's market information on Korea and Asia. Built on data covering about 1,600 digital assets, 5,400 companies and 8,500 investment firms, the platform is designed to let institutions quickly identify assets to watch and capital flows by sector.
The platform also includes real-time information analysis powered by artificial intelligence and an anonymous communication function for institutional investors. AI analyzes a range of sources in real time, including news, regulatory developments, US Securities and Exchange Commission filings and X, to provide information for investment decisions. Unlike general-purpose generative AI tools, it generates answers based on a separate database used by institutional investors and also supports a messenger function that allows verified institutional investors to exchange views anonymously.
Kim also highlighted the importance of EastPoint. Information available online quickly converges as AI systems read the same data and summarize the same news, he said. The most valuable information, he added, comes from meeting the people making decisions in person. In the AI era, networks that provide direct access to decision-makers will become even more valuable, which is why EastPoint exists, he said.
Kim also pointed to broader institutional participation in South Korea's digital-asset market. Under the Financial Services Commission's roadmap for corporate participation in the market, about 3,500 listed companies and professional investment firms are expected to enter. Bloomingbit plans to develop Bloomingbit Terminal into a core information platform for institutional investors in Korea and across Asia.
Park Si-on / Lee Soo-hyun, Bloomingbit reporter

This Week’s Key Economic Events
▶︎Sept. 28 (Mon.): △Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speaks (10:15 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. September Dallas Fed manufacturing index (12:30 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 29) △Fed Governor Lisa Cook speaks (3:25 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 29) △Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speaks (3:30 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 29)
▶︎Sept. 29 (Tue.): △U.S. July S&P/Case-Shiller home price index (11 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS (12 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △U.S. September Conference Board consumer confidence index (12 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △U.S. September Dallas Fed services index (12:30 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △Fed Governor Michelle Bowman speaks (1 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △Fed Vice Chair Michael Barr speaks (2:40 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks (3 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △New York Fed President John Williams speaks (4 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30) △Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks (5 a.m. Korea time on Sept. 30)
▶︎Sept. 30 (Wed.): △U.S. September ADP private employment report (10:15 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. August personal consumption expenditures, or PCE, price index (10:30 p.m. Korea time) △Final reading of U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product growth (10:30 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. crude oil inventories (12:30 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 1) △Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speaks (3:30 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 1) △Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee speaks (7:10 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 1) △Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speaks (8 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 1)
▶︎Oct. 1 (Thu.): △U.S. weekly jobless claims (10:30 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. September S&P Global manufacturing purchasing managers' index, or PMI (10:45 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. September ISM manufacturing PMI (11 p.m. Korea time) △Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin speaks (11:05 p.m. Korea time) △Boston Fed President Susan Collins speaks (11:05 p.m. Korea time) △Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks (12 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2) △Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson speaks (3:30 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2) △Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman speaks (5 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2) △New York Fed President John Williams speaks (5:30 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2) △Fed Governor Lisa Cook speaks (5:30 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2) △Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan speaks (8:45 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 2)
▶︎Oct. 2 (Fri.): △U.S. September nonfarm payrolls report (10:30 p.m. Korea time) △U.S. September unemployment rate (10:30 p.m. Korea time) △Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan speaks (12 a.m. Korea time on Oct. 3)
This Week’s Key Cryptocurrency Events
▶︎Sept. 28 (Mon.): △Solana (SOL) Alpenglow testnet launch
▶︎Sept. 29 (Tue.): △No major events
▶︎Sept. 30 (Wed.): △Injective (INJ) buyback and burn
▶︎Oct. 1 (Thu.): △No major events
▶︎Oct. 2 (Fri.): △DoubleZero (2Z) token unlock