Kakaopay teams with Dinari and Ondo to explore Korean stock tokenization

Kakaopay Securities is working with Dinari and Ondo Finance to explore tokenizing Korean-listed stocks for investors in international markets. Kakaopay announced separate agreements with the firms on Tuesday. Kakaopay and Dinari will run a proof of concept using Dinari's dShares model. The model is designed to preserve applicable shareholder rights, including dividends and voting. Dinari offers 724 tokenized US stocks and ETFs through dShares. Dinari CEO Gabe Otte said no Korean-listed companies have been selected for the proof of concept. Otte said Dinari has not set a public timeline for commercial availability. Otte said the proposed model would use locally listed Korean shares as underlying assets rather than tokens that only track share prices. Kakaopay and Ondo will initially develop a framework for sourcing and custodying Korean-listed shares that could later be tokenized. Kakaopay would operate a foreign investor omnibus account to hold and administer those shares. The companies will also research token issuance and redemption. They said any decision to commercialize tokenized Korean equities will depend on legal and regulatory requirements in South Korea and overseas markets. South Korea's National Assembly approved amendments in January that recognize distributed ledgers as valid securities registries and permit token securities issuance and circulation. The framework is scheduled to take effect in February 2027. The Korea Securities Depository is developing infrastructure to connect existing securities accounts with blockchain-based data. Tokenized stocks had about $3.2 billion in distributed value as of late September, according to RWA.xyz. The market remains heavily concentrated in tokenized US equities and exchange-traded funds.