Shinhan Trials Solana (SOL) Tokenized Won Fund Ahead of Korea's 2027 Securities Launch

Shinhan Bets on Solana First

Shinhan Asset Management has signed an agreement to test a tokenized fund denominated in Korean won that runs on Solana, one of the first moves by an established Korean asset manager onto public blockchain infrastructure. The proof of concept covers investor verification, issuance, distribution and onchain liquidity, with wallet-based identity checks sitting close to the tooling now emerging in the AI crypto wallet segment. The pilot lands just as regulators lock in the legal foundation for a far broader migration of traditional finance onto distributed ledgers. Per the Financial Services Commission's official announcement, tokenized issuance of conventional securities becomes legally viable when amendments to the Electronic Registration Act take effect on Feb. 4, 2027. FSC Vice Chairman Kwon Dae-young unveiled the three-stage roadmap at the third meeting of a public-private consultative body attended by the Financial Supervisory Service, financial institutions, industry groups and private-sector experts. “Authorities will seek to lay foundations to facilitate the tokenized issuance and circulation of more traditional types of securities, including stocks, bonds, and funds,” Kwon said. Stage one admits privately pooled money market funds, bonds reserved for institutional investors, unlisted stocks issued through trust structures and publicly offered fractional investment products. The rollout builds on amendments the National Assembly passed in January that recognize distributed ledgers as valid securities registries while keeping tokenized instruments inside existing securities law. Stage two opens tokenization to all publicly offered securities, with no fixed start date because implementation depends on stage-one results and how quickly financial companies adopt the required technology. Stage three points to stablecoin-based settlement, moving the cash side of securities transactions onto digital rails — a phase that cannot begin until lawmakers pass pending stablecoin rules under the draft Digital Asset Framework Act. Asia already accounted for 30% of global stablecoin trading activity in 2025, according to an OECD report, giving Seoul's plan a fast-growing regional backdrop.

Retail Caps and KSD Rails

Execution now shifts to market plumbing. Samsung SDS won a contract earlier this year to develop a token securities platform for the Korea Securities Depository, with completion expected around the time the amended laws take effect. The system will connect the KSD's existing electronic securities account infrastructure with blockchain records, covering issuance, circulation checks, rights management and monitoring, and the depository has prepared screening criteria for distributed ledgers, including contingency procedures for system failures. Investor protection rules are equally specific: for non-monetary trust beneficiary certificates, the maximum individual subscription is the lower of 30 million won (about $22,000) or 5% of an issuance, and publicly offered allocations must reserve an equal minimum for retail buyers. On over-the-counter exchanges, net annual purchases are capped at 100 million won (roughly $74,000) per platform, a new OTC licensing category for debt securities is planned, and intermediaries handling tokenized securities OTC will need prior consultation with the Financial Supervisory Service. A second FSC release details the operating regime: firms already licensed for the relevant financial activity need no separate authorization to handle tokenized securities, while a new “issuer account management entity” structure lets approved companies run their own securities accounts instead of relying exclusively on financial institutions — provided they maintain at least 4 billion won (near $3 million) in equity capital and dedicated IT and internal-control staff. Parallel pilots are already testing the money leg: deposit-token trials have expanded to nine banks, the Bank of Korea has studied tokenized deposits as settlement money for tokenized bonds, and the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in April that a tokenized-deposit pilot for government operational spending will fully roll out in the fourth quarter of 2026. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

Stablecoin Settlement Still Awaits Law

Read together, the filings show Seoul sequencing ownership before settlement. Only phase one is backed by law; phases two and three remain proposals whose timing rests on subordinate-regulation revisions the FSC plans to publish by the end of September and on pending stablecoin legislation. That makes the cash leg the real bottleneck. Japan is moving on the same front, with an initial development plan targeted for early 2027 and four Mitsubishi UFJ companies already testing government-bond repo settlement on Canton Network since August. With 11.3 million verified crypto users domestically and Asia posting the fastest regional growth in crypto activity, COINOTAG's reading is that the 2027 framework positions Korea's licensed institutions — not offshore venues — as the default gateway to tokenized assets.