Democratic Party Lawmaker Ahn Says Real Estate Should Be Opened to All Through Tokenized Securities

Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Do-geol said tokenized securities, or STOs, should be considered a tool to transform South Korea’s real estate market.

Ahn, a member of the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee, made the remarks on April 28 at a forum at the Korea Financial Investment Association’s Financial Investment Education Institute on fostering the digital-asset industry through a public STO model.

"One of the biggest challenges South Korea must solve is the real estate problem," Ahn said. "The most realistic answer to that is tokenized securities."

Tokenized securities are securities issued in the form of digital assets using distributed ledger technology. Amendments to the Capital Markets Act and the Electronic Securities Act to institutionalize tokenized securities passed the National Assembly plenary session in January.

Ahn said STOs could lower barriers to entry in real estate investment. Property investment has long been concentrated among a small number of people with capital, while most citizens have only borne the burden of rising prices, he said.

"Real estate should be broken down into small digital units so anyone can participate with a small amount of money," Ahn said.

He added that, now that the legal framework for tokenized securities has been passed, the market should move beyond the conceptual stage and begin testing and implementing them in the real world to create successful cases.

Ahn also said tokenized securities could help address jeonse fraud, a social issue that has recently drawn attention. Jeonse is South Korea’s lump-sum deposit lease system.

"The root cause of jeonse fraud is a lack of transparency in information," he said. "If tokenized securities are introduced, all transaction records can be left on the blockchain, allowing the flow of funds to be tracked transparently."