Anna Liu, CEO of HashKey RWA, attended the STO Summit 2026 in Korea on October 2. The summit is one of the events under “Korea Premium Weeks 2026,” co-hosted by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Korea and the Korea Exchange (KRX), aimed at fostering communication and collaboration between Korea’s market and global investors and institutions. Representatives from international organizations such as Franklin Templeton and Webull Technologies, as well as from Korea’s Financial Services Commission, Korea Securities Depository, and Korea Exchange, were also invited to attend.
Anna stated that, with the passage of Korea’s Token Securities Act and its full implementation in February 2027, the key next step for the industry is to build markets with genuine liquidity and trading depth.
Anna noted that the financial system is undergoing three major structural shifts: from offshore to onshore, from digitally native assets to on-chain representations of real-world assets, and from off-chain to on-chain settlement. Drawing on HashKey’s RWA practices, she shared four key insights: asset quality matters more than technology; tokenization is a means, not an end; liquidity must be actively built; and compliance is foundational, not performative. She particularly emphasized, “Liquidity must be actively built—it does not arise naturally.” A truly functional on-chain capital market requires suitable assets, licensed distribution channels, and settlement infrastructure connecting capital providers with asset issuers. Using Hong Kong’s secondary trading of tokenized funds as an example, she highlighted that market-making mechanisms and liquidity monitoring have been integrated into the regulatory framework, while stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits are driving capital onto the chain.
Regarding the development of Korea’s tokenization market, Anna advises: “Beyond planning how assets are issued, consider from day one how funds and assets will truly be traded and settled on-chain.” She notes that current institutional tokenization practices still primarily rely on a certificate-on-chain model, with the long-term direction moving toward asset-on-chain, where on-chain transfers enable final settlement and ownership, compliance conditions, and transfer rules are embedded directly into the asset itself, fully unlocking the potential of programmability. Only by creating a complete闭环 connecting regulated capital, compliant infrastructure, licensed trading venues, and investment-grade products can tokenization truly transition from a regulatory framework to a functioning market. Anna states, “The framework is already in place; the next market must be built together by everyone here.”