The South Korean securities exchange (KRX) is reportedly creating an infrastructure to strengthen the off-board trading market. The exact date of the launch is yet to be confirmed.

According to The Korea Times, the sole South Korea’s securities exchange is in the early stage of blockchain-powered platform development. It is supposed that this system for trades will link its over-the-counter sellers and buyers to trade securities directly and will also help to cut the cost of transactions.

"Though many steps remain before the system's official launch, we expect this would help off-board dealers to trade more easily by saving their costs and efforts in seeking trade partners," a KRX’s representative said in an interview with The Korea Times. He added that it is too early to set the launch date.

The blockchain infrastructure will first be introduced for non-listed securities. According to the estimates provided by the newspaper, the turnover of outside dealing in Korea allegedly amounts to 56 trillion South Korean won (~ 45 billion dollars).

KRX is not the first “real-world” exchange to adopt the blockchain technology. US Nasdaq, The Australian Securities Exchange, as well as The Japan Exchange Group, are also testing blockchain-based platforms.

Korean bitcoin and blockchain community is quickly growing. In December 2015, Streami, Korean startup developing a blockchain-based solution for remittances, attracted $2 million in seed funding. In the beginning of February 2016, South Korean bitcoin exchange Korbit announced the launch of Hyphen, cross-border transaction aggregator based on blockchain.

Anna Lavinskaya