KRX (Korea Exchange)

Institution · Exchange

Korea Exchange (KRX) is South Korea's national securities exchange, and on tokenisation it ran the country's original FSC-guideline-based security token offering (STO) framework, the route that operated before the National Assembly's 15 January 2026 amendments to the Capital Markets Act and the Electronic Securities Act moved tokenised securities from guideline to statute. For a tokenisation operator, KRX is the pre-existing exchange infrastructure that the new statutory STO regime builds on top of, rather than a bespoke platform created for tokenisation.

What it is

Before the statutory amendments, KRX’s STO framework operated under FSC (Financial Services Commission) guidelines rather than dedicated legislation, giving Korean security-token issuance a workable but administratively-guideline-based footing. The 15 January 2026 amendments now let tokenised debt, equity, and investment-contract products trade as investment contract securities through brokerages, with the Electronic Securities Act recognising distributed-ledger records as valid securities registration, taking effect January 2027 after a one-year preparation period.

Relevance to tokenisation

KRX’s guideline-era framework is the baseline the statutory wedge replaces; Mirae Asset Securities, Korea’s largest brokerage, is the institution furthest along in building out tokenised-securities infrastructure under the new regime.