South Korea’s Kakaopay Securities is partnering with tokenization firms Dinari and Ondo Finance to explore bringing Korean-listed stocks onchain and distributing them to investors in international markets.
Kakaopay announced separate agreements with Dinari and Ondo on Tuesday, covering the sourcing of underlying Korean shares, tokenization infrastructure and their potential distribution outside South Korea.
Under the Dinari partnership, the companies will run a proof of concept using Dinari’s dShares model, which is designed to preserve applicable shareholder rights, including dividends and voting. Dinari offers 724 tokenized US stocks and ETFs through dShares, with the Kakaopay partnership exploring an extension of the model to Korean-listed equities.
Dinari CEO Gabe Otte told Cointelegraph that no specific Korean-listed companies have been selected for the proof of concept and that it has not set a public timeline for commercial availability. The proposed model would use locally listed Korean shares as the underlying assets rather than tokens that simply track their prices, he said.
Kakaopay’s agreement with Ondo will initially focus on establishing a framework for sourcing and custodying Korean-listed shares that could later be tokenized. Kakaopay would operate a foreign investor omnibus account to hold and administer the underlying shares.
Ondo and Kakaopay will also research token issuance and redemption. The companies said any decision on whether or when to commercialize tokenized Korean equities will depend on legal and regulatory requirements in South Korea and overseas markets.
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South Korea prepares for tokenized securities
The agreements come as South Korea prepares to implement a new regulatory framework for tokenized securities. The country’s National Assembly approved amendments in January that recognize distributed ledgers as valid securities registries and permit the issuance and circulation of token securities.
In June, the Financial Services Commission linked the development of token securities infrastructure to a broader overhaul of the country’s capital markets. The framework is scheduled to take effect in February 2027, while the Korea Securities Depository is developing infrastructure to connect its existing securities account system with blockchain-based data.
Asked about the appetite for tokenized stocks in South Korea, Otte told Cointelegraph:
We’re seeing meaningful institutional interest in South Korea, particularly around tokenization as infrastructure for connecting Korean capital markets with global investors... The opportunity isn’t simply to create tokenized versions of Korean equities, but to build infrastructure that can ultimately expand how those equities are distributed internationally while preserving the rights and protections of the underlying securities.
Tokenized stocks have surged in 2026, reaching about $3.2 billion in distributed value as of late September, according to RWA.xyz. However, the market remains heavily concentrated in tokenized versions of US equities and exchange-traded funds, including shares in Strategy, Circle, Nvidia and Tesla, along with major US stock ETFs.
