South Korea Plans National Asset Act for Digital Assets
South Korea's Ministry of Finance and Economy has announced plans to establish a National Asset Basic Act, bringing digital assets under the government's official asset management system. The framework signals a formal state-level approach to digital asset governance and regulation.
Yuri Konnov
The Digital Asset Basic Act's path has not been straightforward. Negotiations stalled earlier this year after regulators clashed over stablecoin issuance rights: the Bank of Korea insisted that only banks holding at least 51% ownership should be authorised to issue won-pegged stablecoins, a position that blocked consensus with other regulators. The April 8, 2026 proposal by the ruling Democratic Party — which sought to legalise tokenized real-world assets and stablecoins by routing them through existing capital markets and payment laws — was itself a response to that impasse.
The July 15 briefing also reaffirmed a set of concrete pilot commitments. The government plans to pilot tokenized government bonds in 2027, connecting that effort to its broader Central Bank Digital Currency work. Separately, on April 16, the Ministry announced a project to use tokenized deposits for government operational spending, with a full rollout targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. Gyeonggi Province, meanwhile, is preparing to launch an eight-month blockchain stablecoin pilot in August, adding a sub-national dimension to what is otherwise a centrally driven reform agenda.
The legislative groundwork for tokenized securities was already laid earlier this year. January 2026 amendments to the Capital Markets Act and the Electronic Securities Act established the legal basis for security token offerings, including tokenized securities. As reported by Cointelegraph via TradingView, those changes — constituting the country's first tokenized securities framework — are scheduled to take full effect on February 4, 2027, at which point blockchain ledgers will be legally recognised as valid securities registries. The National Asset Basic Act, once enacted, would sit above that securities-specific layer, governing how the state itself holds and manages digital asset categories at the sovereign level.
South Korea's retail crypto market provides context for the scale of the policy shift. Coinpedia has reported the country accounts for between 15% and 20% of global crypto trading volume, making it one of the largest markets by that measure. The National Asset Basic Act would, if passed, bring that activity into formal alignment with state asset governance for the first time.
The July 15 announcement does not, however, resolve several open questions. The Ministry has not disclosed which specific digital asset categories will be designated as state-managed property at launch, nor has it identified which government agencies will hold supervisory authority over those holdings under the new act. The briefing did not specify a tabling date for the National Asset Basic Act in the National Assembly, a legislative timeline for its passage, or the valuation methodology the state intends to apply to volatile digital assets on its balance sheet. The government has also not published details on how state-owned real estate tokenization — referenced in background materials as a retail participation mechanism — would be structured, priced, or regulated under the incoming framework.
The immediate effect of the July 15 briefing is therefore an executive-level commitment to introduce legislation, not an enacted law. The National Asset Basic Act does not yet exist as a tabled bill, the Digital Asset Basic Act remains in negotiation, and the tokenized bond and deposit pilots are scheduled for 2027 and late 2026 respectively — none of the operational infrastructure described at the briefing is currently live.
