Kakao Pay Securities, the brokerage arm of Korean fintech company Kakao Pay, and U.S.-based tokenization firm Dinari have begun testing whether shares listed on South Korea's Korea Exchange can be tokenized and distributed to investors abroad, with the United States identified as a key target market.

The two companies are developing a framework for sourcing Korean equities and conducting a proof of concept that will examine the legal, technical, and operational requirements for international distribution. The initiative is designed to determine whether Dinari's one-to-one backed dShares infrastructure can support the tokenization and overseas distribution of Korean-listed stocks.

The project remains at an experimental stage. No tokenized Korean shares have been launched or made available for investors to purchase, and the companies have not yet established a live market for the proposed products.

Tokenization Could Widen Access to Korean Equities

Foreign investors have historically faced limitations in accessing Korean-listed stocks directly, while relatively few Korean companies have securities represented through depositary receipts, the traditional cross-border instrument for trading a company's shares outside its home market.

Tokenization could provide an additional distribution mechanism by representing an underlying security through a digital token. The approach could potentially allow in other markets to gain exposure to Korean equities without relying exclusively on conventional cross-border market infrastructure. The Kakao Pay Securities-Dinari initiative applies that concept specifically to Korea-listed shares, and its immediate objective is not the launch of a new trading product but an assessment of whether such a system can operate within applicable regulatory and market structures.

The broader tokenized-stock market has been expanding in parallel. Reports indicate that monthly on-chain volume for tokenized stocks increased from about $1 billion in January to roughly $9 billion in July, reflecting the growth of platforms offering blockchain-based representations of traditional equities.

Dinari Brings a One-to-One Backing Model

Dinari's dShares system uses a custodial structure in which each token is backed by a corresponding underlying security. The model is intended to connect blockchain-based assets with traditional securities while preserving certain economic and corporate rights associated with the underlying holdings.

Dinari has said eligible U.S. investors will be able to access hundreds of tokenized U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds through its infrastructure, and companies can also integrate the system through an application programming interface. The company has described dShares as supporting features associated with conventional equity ownership, including dividends, voting rights, and corporate actions, alongside execution linked to the national best bid and offer (NBBO) framework.

The Korean pilot will examine whether similar infrastructure can be adapted for securities listed on the Korea Exchange and distributed to investors in other jurisdictions.

Regulatory Changes Create an Opening

The trial comes as South Korea and the United States develop clearer frameworks for tokenized securities.

Dinari and Kakaopay Securities have partnered to bring Korean equities within reach of investors in the US and beyond. Built on the dShares standard: cash dividends, corporate actions, redemption and a protected claim to backing securities. Global tokenized markets. pic.twitter.com/WMYinKDRgV

— Dinari (@DinariGlobal) September 29, 2026

South Korea's Financial Services Commission has outlined amendments that expand the scope of security-token regulation beyond fractional investment products to traditional securities, including stocks, bonds, and funds. The changes are scheduled to take effect on Feb. 4, 2027, with security tokens to be treated as securities in digital form. The Korea Capital Market Institute has described the amendments, promulgated in February 2026, as an important development for the country's capital markets.

In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced an Innovation Exemption on Sept. 17 that provides temporary and conditional relief for certain tokenized securities venues trading tokenized national market system stocks through regulated automated market makers. Both frameworks bear on the pilot's cross-border design: Korea's amendments would set the rules for the tokenized form of the underlying stocks, while the SEC's relief applies to tokenized venues operating in the United States.

Scale Remains the Main Test

The project is also emerging as tokenized real-world assets gain traction. Binance Research estimated assets under management for tokenized real-world assets at $34.18 billion as of Sept. 15, representing an 85.2% increase since the start of the year. Tokenized equities recorded a substantially larger 390.4% increase over the same period.

Citi has projected that the tokenized-asset market could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030 in its base case, while identifying regulation, liquidity, and interoperability as significant obstacles. The International Monetary Fund has separately highlighted legal risks surrounding the relationship between a digital token and the real-world asset it represents.

For Kakao Pay Securities and Dinari, the pilot therefore has to establish more than technical feasibility; it must determine whether tokenized Korean equities can be legally structured, operationally supported, and distributed across borders at meaningful scale. The near-term markers are concrete: the findings of the ongoing proof of concept and the Feb. 4, 2027 date on which South Korea's security-token amendments take effect.

Primary sources: Kakao Pay Securities, Dinari, Dinari on X, CoinTrust