Shinhan Asset Management said at a summit in Seoul on the 11th that KRW-based real-world asset tokenization should start with cash-like instruments rather than higher-yield assets, as the firm laid out an infrastructure-first approach for building a domestic on-chain finance market.

Park Sung-yeol, a manager at Shinhan Asset Management, said the KRW tokenization market needs assets that function like cash before attempting to tokenize more attractive investment products. He said infrastructure for payments and collateral use should come first, presenting that as a prerequisite for broader RWA adoption.

As an example, Park pointed to BlackRock's tokenized fund BUIDL, saying it helped establish a base for using reserve and collateral assets in on-chain finance. The comparison was presented as a market reference point rather than evidence of a direct partnership between the two firms.

Shinhan Asset Management plans to conceptualize money market fund-style cash assets as the first KRW-based tokenized product. From there, the firm aims to gradually widen distribution channels. Park also proposed validating the initial business model offshore first, with a structure under which foreign institutional investors' funds would be invested in domestic short-term assets.

In the longer term, Shinhan said the product range could expand to domestic bonds, stocks and alternative assets once the underlying infrastructure has been tested. The company did not disclose a launch date, issuance timeline, regulatory pathway or technical deployment details in the summit remarks.

Why It Matters

The comments matter because they frame tokenization as a market-structure project, not just a packaging exercise for traditional assets. By putting cash-like instruments at the center, Shinhan is emphasizing the functions that make tokenized assets usable across on-chain finance, especially as collateral and settlement tools.

The proposal also points to a possible path for institutional KRW tokenization that begins with offshore validation before wider domestic expansion. If that model advances, it could influence how Korean asset managers approach cross-border distribution and which asset classes are brought on-chain first.