STO landscape in South Korea

Written by Chloe (Jung-Myung) Lee, Partner at Lee & Ko

According to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency trading is now bigger than trading in traditional equities and the number of crypto investors rose in the last year by over 21% to reach 15% of South Korea’s population. Real World Asset (RWA), which refers to a digital token representing fractional ownership in physical assets such as real estates or bonds, has become a hot keyword in the crypto scene. South Korea has not been an exception. South Korea is emerging as a key player in the global Web3 ecosystem, with RWA tokenization driving significant growth. According to the Korea Web3 Market Guide by Tiger Research, FACTBLOCK and Hashed, RWA tokenization is creating new opportunities by enabling digital ownership of physical and intellectual property. Amid domestic regulatory challenges, Korean participants are expanding globally, offering international investors access to high-quality assets and intellectual property.

RWA vs. STO

Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization and security token offerings (…