Nasdaq speeds up security token push, while Korea struggles with infrastructure [Crypto Briefing]

[Financial News] Nasdaq Stock Market (Nasdaq), one of the world’s largest exchanges, is accelerating efforts to build infrastructure for security tokens (ST). As the global ST market begins to expand in earnest, industry voices in Korea say the country must also move quickly to develop related infrastructure.
According to the crypto industry on the 16th, Nasdaq recently decided to work with Payward, the parent company of U.S. crypto exchange Kraken, to develop infrastructure for tokenizing stocks. Kraken is the second-largest crypto exchange in the United States by market share.
Through this partnership, Nasdaq plans to focus on expanding “ST trading,” which allows investors to trade tokenized listed stocks. Back in September last year, Nasdaq had already requested approval for the initiative from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In addition to the Kraken deal, Nasdaq recently entered into a partnership with Seturion, a settlement platform under Boerse Stuttgart Group in Germany, to support blockchain-based stock trading.
Hong Sung-uk, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities, noted, “Announcements on tokenization, including the partnership between Nasdaq and Kraken, have been coming one after another,” adding, “We are seeing several exchanges, including Nasdaq, taking the lead in pushing ahead with tokenization.”
In Korea, amendments to the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act and the Act on Electronic Registration of Stocks and Bonds passed the National Assembly’s plenary session in January, laying the legal groundwork for operating STs. Full implementation is scheduled for February 4 next year. Two groups that have received preliminary approval from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) to operate over-the-counter trading platforms—the KDX Consortium, which includes Korea Exchange (KRX) and Buysell Standards, and the NXT Consortium, made up of NEXTRADE, Musicow and others—are now racing to build the necessary infrastructure.
However, concrete infrastructure development is facing difficulties. The reason is the delay in the second phase of crypto legislation, the General Act on Digital Assets. The securities industry has been calling for the use of a Korean won stablecoin in settlement systems and collateral arrangements related to STs that will be introduced next year. Yet the General Act on Digital Assets, which is supposed to cover issues such as issuance and circulation of a Korean won stablecoin, has not even been formally introduced in the legislature.
In fact, some major overseas markets are already moving to use regulated stablecoins for settlement of tokenized assets. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has outlined a policy direction that would allow stablecoins to be used for ST settlement. Hong Kong, after introducing a licensing regime for stablecoin issuers, is also reviewing the use of stablecoins for ST settlement as a key policy task.
The FSC collected opinions from the securities industry through the 13th, but it remains unclear when the draft bill will be made public. The commission had originally planned to finalize the bill this month through a party–government consultation with the Democratic Party of Korea’s Digital Asset Task Force (TF). However, the process has been postponed indefinitely following the escalation of the Middle East crisis.
A representative of the crypto industry commented, “The General Act on Digital Assets is a basic law that functions like a ‘constitution’ for the virtual asset market. Because it covers such a wide range of areas, the delay is affecting not only crypto exchanges but all related sectors,” and added, “In the case of STs, there is now less than a year left before implementation, so swift passage of the bill is essential to ensure the infrastructure is ready in time.”
yimsh0214@fnnews.com Lim Sang-hyuk Reporter