STO

The rest of Asia has moved. Korea is still deciding. Hong Kong licensed its first stablecoin issuers in April. Japan's yen stablecoin has been live since October 2025. Singapore is writing its framework into law. Korea passed its tokenized-securities law in January and reopened its exchanges to corporations, but the Digital Asset Basic Act, the statute that would license a won stablecoin, remains in committee over a single question: who gets to issue it. While that question sits unanswered, net stablecoin outflows from Korean exchanges have run for eighteen consecutive months, about $10.4 billion in total, almost all of it in dollars. The demand for onchain assets is there. It is being served offshore. Today we are publishing The Seoul Standard, a joint research report with @redstone_defi written for the allocators, funds and institutions weighing Korea. It covers: - A decade of Korean digital asset legislation, from the 2017 ICO ban to VAUPA, and why each crisis produced the next statute - What DABA and the enacted STO framework require of institutions, and the bank-versus-fintech dispute stalling one of them - How a won stablecoin, tokenized deposits and tokenized securities could put inert KRW balances to work onchain - Bear, base and bull scenarios with dated triggers, plus a sourced risk register Read and download the full report (KR/EN): https://blog.kaia.io/the-seoul-standard-korea-daba-sto-framework-will-catalyze-institutional-adoption-non-usd-stablecoins-and-rwa-kr