South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is updating regulatory guidelines to allow companies to invest in crypto assets, ending a ban that has been in place since 2017.
The changes will allow listed companies and professional investors to invest up to 5% of their equity capital in digital assets. The final guidelines are expected to be announced around January or February.
Corporate investments will be limited to the top 20 crypto assets by market capitalization and will only be allowed through the five largest crypto exchanges regulated in South Korea. The inclusion of stablecoins such as USDT is still under discussion.
The move has the potential to bring large-scale capital flows into the domestic crypto market and accelerate the development of products such as crypto ETFs, which have previously been delayed due to regulatory constraints.
The policy reform is also in line with the country’s digital currency strategy, including plans to implement a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as part of South Korea’s long-term economic roadmap.
