Visibility grows on allowing domestic corporations to invest up to 5% of equity in crypto assets

A pathway is expected to open for listed companies and corporations registered as professional investors to invest up to 5% of their equity capital in crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

According to the financial sector on the 11th, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) prepared “Guidelines for Crypto-Asset Trading by Listed Corporations” and shared them with a public-private task force (TF) on the 6th. An official familiar with financial regulators said, “We plan to disclose the final guidelines in January–February and allow corporations to trade crypto assets for investment and treasury purposes.” Given that the bill for the Framework Act on Digital Assets is slated for the first quarter of this year, permission for trading by listed firms and professional-investor corporations is highly likely to materialize no later than within the year.

To prevent excessive risk exposure by companies, the authorities set an annual investment cap at 5% of equity capital. Eligible assets will be limited to the top 20 tokens by market capitalization on a semiannual basis, based on disclosures from South Korea’s five major crypto exchanges. Whether to include Tether (USDT), a dollar-pegged stablecoin, is still under discussion. The authorities also plan to establish trading rules—such as split execution and limits on orders that exceed a specified quote range—to help curb market volatility.

While the industry welcomes the move to allow corporate investment itself, it is voicing concerns about the cap. The United States and Japan impose no restrictions on corporate investment, and the European Union and Singapore also allow crypto-asset investment relatively broadly.

In this regard, an FSC official said, “We are discussing the development of the guidelines through the relevant-agency TF,” adding, “However, key details such as investment caps and eligible assets for corporations have not been finalized at all.”