The ministry announced plans to support the blockchain economy at Monday's State Council meeting. The plan envisages promoting large-scale blockchain pilot projects and new technologies to increase competitiveness in the digital asset ecosystem.
The same plan also placed greater emphasis on artificial intelligence development. The government has officially designated physical AI, AI data centers and semiconductors as the country's three mega projects. To establish a second large production base in the Southwest, an investment of 800 trillion won, or approximately $535.6 billion, is planned in new semiconductor factories, and the memory chip production capacity is aimed to double in five years.
To expand the use of blockchain in financial infrastructure, the government plans to launch a pilot tokenizing government bonds tied to a corporate central bank digital currency (CBDC) project in 2027. The Bank of Korea will also examine ways to ensure interoperability between CBDC and other blockchains. The project will test whether wholesale CBDC, designed for use by financial institutions, can support capital market infrastructure beyond just being a means of payment.
The idea was first expressed on July 1 by Bank of Korea Governor Hyun Song Shin at the European Central Bank's central banking forum. Shin described government bonds as the grand prize of tokenization and proposed moving tokenized bonds, wholesale central bank money, and tokenized commercial bank deposits onto a unified ledger. This proposal was presented as an extension of the central bank-led Hangang Project.
To revitalize the private digital asset sector, South Korean authorities will advance the proposed Digital Asset Basic Law to come into force in the second half of the year. The law, which has been in the works since mid-2025, is expected to lay out the basic legal framework for digital assets, including business conduct rules and a set of regulations for stablecoins pegged to the Korean won.
The ministry stated that the law will also create a legal basis for cross-border stablecoin transactions and will support amendments to the Capital Markets Law to pave the way for the country's first spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds. The government will also explore ways to manage and trade Voluntary Carbon Market credits on the blockchain, in collaboration with international organisations. The bond pilot is expected to coincide with the February 2027 entry into force of the regulation that recognizes distributed ledgers as valid securities registrations.