Korea's central bank wants bond markets fully tokenized — and a ledger to keep them in line 📜

Bank of Korea Governor Hyun Song Shin called the tokenization of government bonds the "big prize" of emerging financial infrastructure, arguing that putting sovereign debt on a unified ledger would simplify collateral verification, account crediting and transaction reversals. Speaking Wednesday at the European Central Bank Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal, Shin said it is "much easier, much less prone to mistakes if you have everything tokenized." He framed the proposal as an extension of "Project Hangang," a Bank of Korea-led pilot project testing a blockchain-based wholesale CBDC system.

Under the plan, tokenized government bonds, wholesale central bank digital currencies and tokenized commercial bank deposits would operate on a unified ledger. Shin positioned the architecture as a way to reduce friction across issuance and settlement, in remarks carried on the ECB's livestream. Bank of Korea officials did not provide a launch timeline during the discussion.

The push comes as tokenized U.S. Treasury debt has become the largest tokenized real-world asset category, representing $14.6 billion, or roughly 46% of the $31.7 billion RWA market, according to data provider RWA.xyz. Globally, governments and corporations have begun placing debt instruments on distributed ledgers, with industry participants pointing to shorter settlement windows and lower operational risk as motivating factors.

A July 2025 report from the Bank for International Settlements found that tokenized government bonds could improve market efficiency and support financial innovation, provided regulatory and infrastructure challenges are addressed. The report examined 39 tokenized bonds, including 24 issued by corporations and 15 by governments, and flagged "suggestive evidence" of lower bid-ask spreads and comparable issuance costs and yields compared with traditional, non-tokenized instruments. The BIS also noted that smart-contract execution could enable contingent settlement, broaden investor access and lower counterparty risk across the securities lifecycle.