Avalanche: institutional adoption in the United Arab Emirates and South Korea

Avalanche is gaining ground with institutions. In the United Arab Emirates, its technology will support the UAE PASS digital vault, a service that allows official documents to be preserved and shared. In South Korea, it is part of financial market tokenization projects, while the authorities are preparing the arrival of stocks, bonds and funds on blockchain. We take stock of these two pieces of information.

United Arab Emirates: Avalanche for the UAE PASS vault

UAE PASS allows citizens, residents and visitors to identify themselves online, sign documents and access public or private services. According to Avalanche, the platform has 12.5 million users, provides access to more than 15,000 services and connects more than 350 organizations.

The announced project concerns a specific function of this digital identity: the Digital Vault. This safe allows you to store and share verified official documents. The federal authority TDRA plans to upgrade its blockchain infrastructure to a dedicated L1 Avalanche. The chain must in particular help recipient organizations to verify the authenticity of documents and identify possible modifications.

A dedicated channel also allows the operator to define its access rules and configuration. However, we must distinguish the size of UAE PASS from that of the vault: the 12.5 million people are users of the identity platform as a whole, and not a published number of active users on Avalanche. The announcement also does not mean that all residents’ identity data is recorded on a blockchain.

South Korea: Avalanche claims a role in the tokenization of markets

The South Korean Financial Services Commission has presented a roadmap to enable the issuance and trading of tokenized securities. It ultimately targets stocks, bonds and funds, with the Korean central depository participating in the construction of the infrastructure.

Rollout is expected to begin in February 2027 with select funds and bonds aimed at institutional investors, as well as unlisted shares tokenized using a fiduciary structure. South Korea also plans to study a pilot project for listed stocks. The extension to securities offered to the general public, then settlement directly on blockchain, would come in later phases.

In a publication dedicated to this announcement, Avalanche affirms that this evolution of Korean markets will be based on its technology. The regulator's press release confirms the roadmap, but does not name Avalanche and does not specify which blockchain will be used in the different phases. The exact role of the network in the national infrastructure is therefore not established by the Korean authorities at this stage.