South Korea's STO bill passed the preliminary review of the National Assembly, and the token securities market may be welcomed in the first half of next year

Amendments to South Korea's electronic securities law and capital markets law to promote the institutionalization of token securities issuance (STO) have been approved by the parliamentary committee's bill review sub-committee, laying the foundation for the opening of the STO circulation market in the first half of next year. The amendment proposes to formally incorporate blockchain distributed ledger technology into the electronic registration system, enabling issuers to register and manage distributed ledger-based token securities as electronic securities; at the same time, it will bring small-scale platforms such as investment contract securities and non-monetary trust income securities into supervision, providing a basis for the legal operation of fragmented investment exchanges. If the bill is finally passed in the plenary session of the National Assembly next month, the tokenization and circulation of various types of physical assets such as real estate, artworks, and music copyrights will be carried out within the regulatory framework.