South Korea Weighs Corporate Crypto Access as Custody Rules Take Center Stage

South Korea’s push to open the digital asset market to corporate participants is moving from policy debate to practical design, with local custody providers arguing that ‘trust infrastructure’ must be built before institutional capital can safely scale. B-DAX, a digital asset infrastructure company, is set to take a leading role in a National Assembly conference focused on how to expand corporate access while strengthening security, compliance, and market safeguards.

The conference, titled “Academic Conference for Corporate Market Opening and Building a Safe Digital Asset Ecosystem,” will be held on July 23 Eastern Time (ET) at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building in Seoul. It is co-hosted by lawmakers Kim Hyun-jung and Ahn Do-geol of the Democratic Party of Korea, and co-organized by B-DAX alongside the Korea Fintech Industry Association and the Digital Financial Crime Response Research Institute.

Policy officials from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), as well as representatives from traditional finance, academia, the legal sector, and the digital asset industry, are expected to attend. The agenda centers on the regulatory and operational prerequisites for corporate participation, including governance standards, anti-money laundering controls, custody rules, and a broader roadmap for market infrastructure.

B-DAX CEO Hongyeol Ryu will deliver the first presentation under the theme “The Significance of Opening the Corporate Digital Asset Market and the Role of Custody.” According to organizers, Ryu will outline why ‘custody’—the regulated safekeeping and administration of crypto assets—should be treated as a foundational pillar for any institutional-grade market, and will propose policy directions for aligning digital asset controls with existing financial-sector expectations.

Shin Hee-jin, a director at Kyobo Securities, will follow with a session on building ‘institutional trust infrastructure’ in an era of professional investors. The program then shifts to a comprehensive panel discussion involving the FSC, KoFIU, the Korea Institute of Finance, and experts from the legal, academic, and industry communities, with emphasis on implementation sequencing: what can be launched immediately, what requires supervisory guidance, and what must be standardized across the sector.

In prepared remarks shared ahead of the event, Ryu said institutional-grade custody is no longer optional as the corporate market becomes more accessible. “As the corporate market opens in earnest, custody infrastructure with bank-level security and compliance is a necessity, not a choice,” he said, adding that B-DAX aims to raise market standards so digital assets can reach “the same level of safety and trust” as traditional finance.

Kyobo Securities’ Shin echoed the message, emphasizing risk frameworks as the critical bridge between legacy finance and crypto markets. “For a corporate-centered digital asset market to grow in a stable way, trust infrastructure and risk management systems at the level of traditional finance must be in place,” Shin said, stressing that cooperation between the securities industry and digital asset firms will be essential to sustain growth without undermining market integrity.

The Korea Fintech Industry Association framed corporate participation as a strategic inflection point for the domestic ecosystem. Chairman Jong-hyun Kim said allowing corporate entry could become a “turning point” for Korean fintech to compete globally, adding that the association intends to act as a connector between member companies’ innovation and traditional financial institutions while prioritizing ‘regulatory compliance’ and consumer and market protections.

The debate comes as Korean policymakers and market participants weigh how to expand participation without repeating failures seen in earlier crypto cycles, where weak internal controls, inadequate custody practices, and fragmented compliance created avenues for theft or financial crime. For corporate treasuries and regulated institutions, custody standards—such as segregation of client assets, insurance and audit practices, secure key management, and monitored transaction workflows—are often viewed as prerequisites for meaningful allocations.

B-DAX said it recently surpassed 80 billion won (approximately $58 million) in assets under custody (AUC), claiming the largest scale in South Korea’s digital asset custody market. The company also said it provides a ‘prime custody solution’ aimed at corporate clients, covering not only asset storage but also staking, lending, accounting reporting, and risk management functions—services that mirror operational needs typically required by institutions rather than retail investors.

As South Korea moves closer to formalizing a corporate on-ramp, the conference is likely to spotlight an increasingly central question: whether the market’s next growth phase will be shaped primarily by new products and liquidity, or by the slower but decisive work of building auditable, enforceable ‘trust infrastructure.’ The outcomes of these discussions—particularly any signals from regulators on custody and compliance expectations—could influence how quickly corporate participation becomes a meaningful force in Korea’s digital asset ecosystem.