South Korea's Security Token (STO) Legislation and the Possibility of Public Node Participation

South Korea’s security token legislation does not explicitly prohibit public nodes or public blockchains. However, the node composition and no-separate-digital-asset requirements presented by the Financial Services Commission in 2023 effectively exclude the use of public, permissionless networks and assume a permissioned structure of institutional nodes. Because those standards were not directly incorporated into the 2026 amended legislation and were instead delegated to subordinate statutes, the final scope of public chain use will be determined through enforcement decrees and guidelines.