"We are meeting with every Korean financial institution, from banks to securities firms. There is great interest from everyone, but there still aren't many things we can do together yet."
A representative from a Brazilian blockchain company who attended "Bitcoin Seoul 2026" expressed regret, saying that while Korea's interest in on-chain finance is intense, the institutional foundation to turn it into business still appears inadequate. After the brief conversation, he hurried off to his next meeting.
Throughout the venue, not only participants but also working-level staff from domestic financial firms and representatives from global Web3 companies exchanged business cards and continued conversations, squeezing dialogue into even their break times. The private VIP meetings were also so heated that they ran well past their scheduled times.
The messages from the global speakers at the event were strikingly identical: technology has already largely been resolved. The era when tokenization itself was the core competitiveness is over. What matters now is who can connect more assets, distribute them across broader markets, and integrate them with institutional finance.
The activities of Viv Diwakar, head of the Canton Foundation, who visited Korea for the first time this time, symbolically demonstrate this. The reason Canton, which had no time to rest as it met one after another with financial firms and government agencies, is drawing attention lies in its participants, distribution networks, and transaction scale rather than the technology itself. Canton, in which major Wall Street financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan participate, is evaluated as a network that connects assets and liquidity.
The level of discussion is indeed changing. In the past, the focus was on whether assets could be tokenized; now the topic is whether the financial market itself can be moved into an on-chain environment. In the United States, the tokenization of government bonds, funds, and stocks is becoming reality, and discussions are even emerging on the tokenization of Nasdaq-listed stocks.
In contrast, Korea has not even properly opened a corporate investment market yet. The second-phase legislation on digital assets is also at a standstill. The world has jumped into the competition for on-chain financial infrastructure, but we still remain near the starting line.
One question remains: Is Korea ready to ride this wave? As John Cahill, Asia-Pacific chief operating officer (COO) of Galaxy Digital, said, the greatest risk now is not failure but doing nothing.
