South Korea to test tokenized government bonds with CBDC in 2027
South Korea plans a 2027 pilot to link tokenized government bonds with the Bank of Korea’s institutional CBDC infrastructure, making sovereign bond tokenization an official government project. The 2026 Economic Growth Strategy also says authorities will study interoperability between the BOK’s permissioned CBDC system and external blockchains. The goal is to test whether wholesale CBDC can support capital markets infrastructure, not just payments. Details such as the bond type, pilot size, participants, and blockchain technology remain unspecified, as do issuance, trading, or settlement scope. The idea was publicly raised earlier by BOK Governor Hyun Song Shin, who proposed combining tokenized bonds, wholesale central bank money, and tokenized bank deposits on a unified ledger. The strategy is part of a wider blockchain push, alongside planned measures for digital assets, stablecoins, and token securities, with regulated token securities expected to begin in February 2027.
