Canton Foundation and Noves are co-hosting The Capital Forum: Canton Network at Institutional Scale, the first institutional forum hosted by Canton in Korea. The private gathering takes place on September 30 at Andaz Seoul Gangnam during Korea Blockchain Week, in partnership with IBM and its Digital Asset Haven team, and Tiger Research.
The forum comes as South Korea's token-securities framework is set to take effect on February 4, 2027. Banks, securities firms, and financial holding companies targeting the first phase have only a few months to prepare the systems and operating arrangements needed to support tokenized financial products, and for several major Korean financial groups, those preparations already include relationships with Canton.
The event follows Canton's participation in other events and private briefings with leading Korean banks and broker-dealers, bringing that engagement into a dedicated forum for financial and corporate executives. Representatives from Mirae Asset Securities, KB Financial Group, KB Kookmin Bank, Hanwha Finance, and Kyobo Life Insurance are expected to attend, while Shinhan Asset Management will take part in a fireside discussion with Nodeinfra. The wider Korea Blockchain Week program also includes Digital Asset on the main conference stage and Canton Foundation participation at EastPoint:Seoul, RealFi x Asia Stablecoin Conference, Bridge Seoul, and the STO Summit.
Korea's September policy roadmap helps explain the institutional interest. It extends tokenization into conventional capital-market products, with privately placed money market funds and corporate bonds for institutional investors among the first-phase priorities. Broader public securities offerings and stablecoin-linked settlement form part of later stages. The initial market will be limited in scope, but the experience gained in issuance, account management, and operations will inform subsequent expansion.
Some Korean firms have already made substantial commitments to Canton. Hanwha Investment & Securities announced an approximately KRW 30 billion investment in Digital Asset in July, following an April memorandum of understanding. Shinhan Asset Management announced on September 14 that it had received approval to become a Canton Super Validator, advancing its June agreement with Canton Foundation into a role in network governance and operations. On September 17, Kyobo Life Insurance announced completion of a pilot with SBI Digital Practice using Canton's test environment to validate token-based institutional fund transfers, currency conversion, and settlement between Japan and Korea.
Korean institutions are also looking at how domestic products could connect with a network already used in global markets. Broadridge's use of Canton for repo transactions is one established example. In July, DTCC processed production trades using tokenized DTC-held securities, with the initiative spanning Canton and its private Besu network. Mirae Asset Securities (USA) is part of DTCC's broader industry working group helping shape its tokenization service across multiple blockchains, and Shinhan Asset Management joined representatives from DTCC, J.P. Morgan, and Franklin Templeton on stage at the inaugural Canton Summit in New York earlier this month.
Before moving into production, institutions need tokenization, trade, settlement, and post-settlement infrastructure durable enough to withstand significant regulatory scrutiny. That means demonstrating how transactions are authorized and settled, how sensitive data is protected, and how activity can be traced and examined by authorized reviewers, with the controls and the evidence that they work established before regulated tokenized products go live.
With February 2027 approaching, the Seoul forum brings executives together at the point where strategic interest is turning into implementation, and where decisions made now will shape participation in the first phase of Korea's tokenized securities market.
