Legal Issues related to the Circulation of Token Securities under the Revised Capital Markets Act

Various digital assets using distributed ledger technology include token securities, CBDC, fragmentation investment, and RWA. The emergence of various financial investment products including token securities is expected to bring about the activation of the digital asset market. In particular, by tokenizing assets that were difficult to securitize in the capital market, it enabled investors to increase access to financial assets and to trade without geographic and time constraints. Accordingly, Our country tried to promote the distribution of the token securities market through the revision of the Capital Markets Act. This revision is meaningful in that it seeks to revitalize the circulation of token securities while protecting ordinary investors. Therefore, this theory attempted to examine the main contents of the amendment to the Capital Markets Act and suggest improvement measures. The following are suggested as a concrete improvement methods. First, in order to protect investors and prevent conflicts of interest, the amendment of capital markets law prohibited the distribution of token securities by issuers, but in the long term, it is necessary to allow both issuance and circulation markets. Second, in the early stages of the token securities market, it is necessary to revitalize the market by easing entry requirements such as approval of investment brokers, but it is necessary to gradually strengthen it from an investor protection perspective in the future. Third, regarding the restriction of the investment limit of general investors, it is necessary to expand investor participation by reflecting the total investment limit and the standard of annual income together as in the United States rather than simply based on the total investment limit. Lastly, with regard to the establishment of digital securities-only exchanges, global trends are aiming for multiple exchange systems, so Korea also needs to limit the participation of the Korea Exchange to reduce the negative effects of the monopoly of the Korea Exchange.