Hanwha Investment & Securities has completed a tokenized securities platform built on Avalanche, placing one of the largest South Korean brokerages ahead of rules that bring blockchain-based securities into the regulated capital market on February 4, 2027.
The system was developed by FairSquare Lab and supports more than one distributed ledger. Alongside Avalanche, Hanwha can run tokenized products on Hyperledger Besu, an Ethereum-compatible chain built for enterprise deployments. Seoul Economic Daily reported the completion on Sunday, with The Block and crypto.news following on Monday. Support for two chains means Hanwha can route each product to the ledger that fits it and switch if one falls behind.
Tokenized securities are conventional instruments, funds, bonds or shares recorded as blockchain tokens, with ownership tracked on a ledger instead of a central register. The National Assembly passed amendments that fold them into the existing capital markets framework, and the Financial Services Commission has published a three-phase roadmap for their arrival.
For investors, tokenization promises faster settlement and fractional ownership of assets that previously traded in large blocks. For regulators, it raises custody and investor protection questions, which is why Korea starts with institutional products rather than retail offerings. Money market funds and institutional bonds carry established custody chains, a safer first step than publicly offered shares.
The depository follows the brokers
The Korea Securities Depository is preparing its own token securities infrastructure to connect with the same ledgers. Its published distributed-ledger requirements cover Avalanche, Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Fabric. Participation in connected networks stays limited to approved institutions, including securities companies and the depository itself, which plans to join the networks directly to oversee issuance and electronic registration records.
The depository acts as connective tissue. Once it links to a ledger, any approved securities firm building on the same technology can reach the national registration infrastructure without a bespoke integration. That design lowers the entry cost for mid-sized brokerages that come to the tokenized market later. A depository official told Seoul Economic Daily the choice followed requests from a number of companies through the token securities consultative body rather than a pre-emptive decision, and a business that wants a different distributed ledger can receive technical support and platform connection after prior consultation.
A three-phase rollout
The first phase, starting in February, covers privately pooled money market funds, bonds reserved for institutional investors, unlisted stocks and fractional securities. Fractional securities let investors buy slices of assets that otherwise trade in institutional sizes. The second phase would extend tokenization to all publicly offered securities. Regulators set no date for it and tied timing to the results of the first rollout. The final phase moves payment onto blockchain rails, linking stablecoins to the settlement side of tokenized transactions.
| Phase | Scope | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| One | Money market funds, institutional bonds, unlisted stocks, fractional securities | February 4, 2027 |
| Two | All publicly offered securities | No fixed date, depends on phase one |
| Three | Onchain payment infrastructure linked to stablecoins | Not set |
Hanwha has been assembling its position in the tokenization stack for months. The brokerage bought stakes in Securitize and Digital Asset through pre-IPO financing rounds, describing both purchases as financial investments that could feed its digital asset and real-world asset businesses.
Korea is not moving alone
Japan moved earlier this year. In July, Progmat, the tokenization platform backed by the three Japanese megabanks, shifted its operations from Corda 5 to a dedicated Avalanche layer-1. Projects representing more than 452 billion yen in underlying assets moved with it, and the migration made those securities compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine while keeping institutional controls intact.
For Avalanche, the institutional wins now add up. A private securities platform at one of the largest Korean brokerages, a Japanese institutional rail and a place in the published requirements of the Korea Securities Depository all name the same chain. Its enterprise model, where institutions run dedicated networks with control over validators and participation, matches how regulated securities firms operate.
Limits remain. Networks connected to the depository will exclude public participation, and Korean tokenized securities sit inside the securities framework rather than trade like crypto tokens. Issuers keep the obligations they carry in conventional markets, and the depository plans to monitor issuance across connected chains.
The February deadline sets the clock for the rest of the industry. The Hanwha platform is finished, the depository connection work is underway, and the first licensed products are expected once the amendments take effect. Brokerages that waited for clarity now have a date to work against, and at least one competitor is already built.
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