# One day in Aug. 2027, an office worker in her 30s, Ms. A, opened a securities app on her smartphone on the subway to work. Among the "emperor stocks" priced at hundreds of thousands of won per share, what caught her eye was "N Seoul Tower at Namsan in Seoul," located near her neighborhood. It is security token offerings (STOs) issued based on the Namsan Tower asset. The minimum investment is 30,000 won. She bought five shares. Just before going to sleep, she also made a small investment in security token offerings issued based on a new drug patent held by a domestic bio corporations and an oil painting by a famous artist, Mr. C. It is a scene that will become part of everyday life in Korea's capital market after 2027. On Jan. in the electronic securities law governing the electronic registration of stocks and bonds and the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act passed the National Assembly, formalizing the security token offerings system that had been delayed for more than three years.
Security token offerings, which only a few startups designated by the Financial Services Commission issued within a temporary regulatory sandbox, will become a formal financial investment product issued by qualified corporations or securities firms and bought and sold on exchanges like stocks.
Security token offerings are securities that split real assets such as real estate and artworks, or financial assets such as stocks and bonds, into equity and manage them on a distributed ledger (Blockchain). Just as paper securities used since 1956 were replaced by electronic securities in 2019, this time the concept is to move the ledger that records and manages securities information from a central server to the Blockchain. Lee Geon-ho, former KB Kookmin Bank president, who authored "security token offerings" in 2023, said, "Our capital market has been trapped for hundreds of years in the standardized framework of stocks and bonds," and added, "The true value of security token offerings lies in bringing previously marginalized nonstandard asset such as real estate, artworks, and copyrights into the institutional fold."
Projections that the security token offerings market will have a Big Bang are also based on such expectations. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) predicted that the domestic security token offerings market will grow from 34 trillion won in 2024 to 369 trillion won in 2030. The global security token offerings market is forecast to reach $18.9 trillion (about 2,742.2 trillion won) in 2033. The related amendments that cleared the National Assembly will newly introduce distributed-ledger-based securities account management infrastructure and overhaul investor protection systems, and are set to take effect starting Jan. 2027.
All assets traded in real time 24/7, 365 days
This legislation grants security token offerings the same rights as existing electronic securities. Security token offerings are more efficient than traditional securities transactions. Stock exchanges only allow transactions during business hours. It usually takes two days from contract to settlement. But security token offerings allow 24/7, 365-day transactions with instant settlement. High-value asset in the hundreds of millions of won can be easily divided into tokens (rights), enabling transactions in 10,000-won units and below. It is useful for liquidating all asset capable of generating revenue. The legislation of security token offerings is meaningful in that it brought about this "asset democratization" and "issuance market diversification."
Because security token offerings are based on the Blockchain, they are hard to forge or tamper with. In addition, it becomes as easy for a domestic investor to directly buy U.S. real estate security token offerings as it is to buy domestic stocks.
Investment targets on stock apps to expand sharply in 2027
Even before the legislation of security token offerings, investors could make fractional investments by sharing equity in real estate, artworks, and copyrights. Through the sandbox, the Korea Exchange (KRX) could trade security token offerings on the on-exchange market for two years, but there was no actual distribution. Through this legislation, intermediaries licensed for over-the-counter brokerage can now operate over-the-counter exchanges for security token offerings. However, Lucent Block, which ran an over-the-counter exchange during the preliminary licensing process, was eliminated, and in protest, the deliberation for the final license has been delayed. The Korea Fintech Industry Association (KORFIN) expressed concern, saying, "Licensing distribution platforms is the starting point of the security token offerings ecosystem, and if licensing decisions are prolonged, the entire industry could be dampened."
If issuance and transactions of security token offerings begin next year, real estate, copyrights, equity in unlisted corporations, and revenue rights from infrastructure projects (such as solar power generation) could appear alongside stock, exchange-traded fund (ETF), and bond products on mobile trading systems (MTS). Many experts pick real estate as a promising investment asset. Office buildings in downtown Seoul, logistics centers, and hotels will be issued as security token offerings, with tens of thousands of people sharing equity and receiving dividends from capital gains on sales or rental revenue.
# Keyword
Distributed ledger: Not a single central ledger, but a technology in which multiple participants share the same transaction ledger and verify and record it simultaneously. Security token offerings implemented this by using the Blockchain.
Beyond real assets, innovating existing financial infrastructure
The security token offerings market is rapidly replacing existing financial infrastructure overseas as well. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Jan. 19 (local time) announced it would build infrastructure supporting 24-hour security token offerings transactions and instant settlement. The financial industry said, "The New York Stock Exchange, traditionally centered on large corporations, breaking 200 years of practice to make this decision symbolizes that tokenization has been elevated from alternative finance to the standard of the next-generation capital market." Exchanges such as the U.S. Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange have already begun building Blockchain-based systems, starting a competition to set technological standards. In the past it was limited to alternative asset such as real estate, but now the center of gravity is shifting to tokenizing mainstream financial products such as listed stocks, ETFs, and money market funds (MMFs).
Securities firms' revenue structures also face a major transformation. Security token offerings are often exclusively distributed on specific exchanges, so the "sourcing capability" to discover attractive investment products is expected to become the core competitive edge of securities firms. Shin Beom-jun, CEO of Buysell Standards, said, "The real battleground going forward is how quickly we securitize nonstandard asset that were hard to liquidate, such as IP, corporate finance, and content." Bernhard Krompelfrener, a BCG partner, predicted, "Bonds, whose contract structures are suitable for digital issuance and which Korea's major banks and securities firms can tokenize quickly, are most likely to be activated first."
Also emerging as a KOSDAQ booster
The view is expanding from a means for fractional investing to financial innovation and a means of corporate fundraising. If account management institution requirements are met, starting next year the owner of the underlying asset can directly issue and manage security token offerings without going through a securities firm, unlike stock issuance. They can also access a broader investor base than traditional venture investment funds, potentially becoming a funding source for early-stage startups. A startup could secure initial capital through security token offerings and then seek a KOSDAQ listing, or an existing KOSDAQ-listed company could issue security token offerings backed by its real estate or patents to secure liquidity. The Democratic Party of Korea's KOSPI 5000 Special Committee on Jan. 23 officially proposed to President Lee Jae-myung over lunch a strategy to revitalize the KOSDAQ market using digital assets such as security token offerings. Along with the legislation of security token offerings, the Digital Asset Basic Act, which would bring won stablecoins (stablecoins: cryptocurrencies with exchange ratios fixed to legal tender or assets) into the institutional framework, is being pursued. Won stablecoins would become a means of settlement for security token offerings.
There are significant hurdles to clear for security token offerings to take root. Information asymmetry between issuers and investors of nonstandard asset such as real estate and artworks could create the risk of a lemon market (an information-asymmetry market) like the used-car market. In an Oct. 2025 report, the National Assembly Research Service warned, "If the intrinsic value of real asset and the market value of securities diverge, investor losses could occur, leading to damage to trust in the security token offerings market." It is also considered a limitation that domestic security token offerings are based on a private Blockchain where only authorized institutions can view the transaction ledger. Like U.S. real-world-asset-based tokens (RWA), operating on public Blockchains such as Ethereum can improve accessibility for global investors.