The Korea Financial Services Commission has finally announced a major update — officially lifting the 9-year ban on corporate crypto investments that has been in place since 2017.

The core of this new policy is quite clear: listed companies and professional investors can allocate up to 5% of their equity annually to the top 20 largest crypto assets by market cap, but only through trading on Korea’s five compliant major exchanges. This move means approximately 3,500 entities are now eligible to participate, with specific details expected to be announced between January and February for formal implementation.

How will the market react? In the short term, this could unlock potential incremental capital in the trillions of Korean won. However, honestly, in the initial phase, most of this money is likely to flow into leading assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, making it difficult for small- and mid-cap coins to gain a share.

Looking at a longer time horizon, this change could trigger a wave of institutional deployment across East Asia, possibly pushing Japan, Hong Kong, and other regions to optimize their regulatory frameworks. For platforms supporting staking, RWA tokenization, and stablecoin applications like Ethereum, this is a positive signal. However, in the short term, market prices will still depend on overall sentiment, and policy support doesn’t necessarily immediately reverse volatility patterns.