South Korea's Shinhan Asset Management is piloting a won-denominated tokenized bond fund on Solana, copying the structure of BlackRock's BUIDL fund. The offshore pilot targets institutional investors and stays confined to technical testing until South Korea's securities token rules take effect in February 2027.
Shinhan Asset Management has announced a pilot tokenized fund denominated in Korean won built on the Solana blockchain. The product covers ultra-short-term bonds for offshore institutional investors and fully replicates the structure of BlackRock's BUIDL fund, the largest player in the real-world assets sector.
To launch the project, Shinhan signed a four-party agreement with the Solana Foundation, fintech platform Etherfuse and decentralized exchange Orca. As part of the proof of concept, the partners are testing the full operational cycle, from know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks to foreign-exchange compliance. Orca's role is to supply on-chain liquidity for asset conversions, mirroring the institutional standards built into BlackRock's model.
Solana leads on tokenization volume
Shinhan picked Solana because of the network's standing in the tokenization market. Solana ranks third globally by distributed real-world-asset value, at $3.86 billion. It leads by project count, with 2,678 launched projects compared with Ethereum's 2,268. The network's stablecoin market cap tops $15.9 billion.
BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund already runs on Solana with $695 million in assets, making it the network's largest fund. The Janus Henderson AAA CLO Fund follows, at $201.7 million. Ondo U.S. Dollar Yield holds $179.3 million, and the State Street Galaxy OnChain Liquidity Sweep Fund holds $161 million.
Offshore only, for now
Shinhan CEO Lee Seok-won said the company aims to become a leading issuer of won-denominated digital products. All fund operations currently run offshore and stay limited to technical validation, because South Korea's security token offering rules will not take effect until February 2027.
While the market awaits that regulatory shift, Shinhan is building infrastructure ahead of domestic trading. Consulting firm BCG forecasts the global RWA market will grow from $36 billion currently to $30 trillion by 2030, a scale that makes Solana a contender for Korean capital adopting Western fund models.
Source: U.Today
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