Shinhan Asset Management signed a four-way memorandum of understanding August 21 to build a tokenized Korean won fund on Solana, targeting institutional investors ahead of South Korea's security token offering regime launching February 4, 2027.
The project pairs Shinhan with Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and Orca in a proof-of-concept that covers fund issuance, investor distribution, regulatory compliance, blockchain operations and onchain liquidity. The structure mirrors BlackRock's BUIDL, a tokenized money market fund the asset manager launched on Ethereum in 2024.
South Korea has spent two years drafting security token amendments after its Financial Services Commission approved the framework in principle in 2024. The February 4 effective date gives regulated institutions a five-month window to prepare before the regime goes live. Shinhan will have the option to enter the market as soon as rules permit.
Etherfuse is a real-world asset tokenization platform focused on South Korea and Asia. Orca is a Solana-based decentralized exchange. The Solana Foundation has been pursuing adoption across East Asia, backing similar institutional tokenization projects in the region.
Shinhan's August 14 partnership with Plume, another RWA tokenization platform, involves a separate securities issuance experiment. Shinhan is testing multiple blockchain and infrastructure stacks before committing production assets to either network.
Solana has competed aggressively for tokenization workloads after Ethereum captured early institutional adoption through Blackrock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's on-chain money market fund. Solana's lower transaction costs and higher throughput appeal to asset managers running high-frequency settlement and distribution workflows. The network processes roughly 4,000 transactions per second at full capacity, compared to Ethereum's 12 to 15 per second at current congestion.
Shinhan is South Korea's second-largest asset manager by assets under management as of 2025. The four-way agreement does not specify fund size or a launch date for the proof-of-concept phase.
