Tiger Research: Korea RWA, Stablecoin Markets at 360T Won by 2030

Tiger Research has projected that South Korea's combined real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and stablecoin markets will reach 360 trillion won, the equivalent of roughly $261 billion at current exchange rates, by the end of the decade, according to Korea-focused industry outlet Bloomingbit.

The Seoul-headquartered research firm places its 2030 endpoint across two adjacent rails it treats as a single corridor: on-chain representations of off-chain financial assets, typically government and corporate debt, money-market instruments, and trade receivables, and stablecoin issuance denominated in or anchored to the Korean won. At scale, 360 trillion won represents roughly fifteen percent of South Korea's annual gross domestic product, a sizing frame that places the projection within reach of the country's broader capital markets.

How Tiger Research sizes the ceiling

The 360 trillion-won figure is the headline output of a firm whose published work regularly informs Korean institutional positioning on digital assets. Tiger Research presents the number as a 2030 endpoint, not as an annual run-rate or interim milestone. The firm has not published the bridge from current market size to its stated endpoint in the material distributed through Bloomingbit, which leaves the projection directional rather than budgeted.

For scale, South Korea's household financial assets sit in the multi-thousand-trillion-won range; a 360 trillion-won ceiling for combined RWA and stablecoin flows represents a meaningful but not dominant share of the country's investable base. That ratio frames the projection as a structural rather than transformational shift: substantial in absolute terms, plausible within a decade, and dependent on regulatory clarity that regulators have not yet produced.

The two rails inside the single number

The decision to combine RWA and stablecoin volume under a single won-denominated total compresses a meaningful distinction.

• RWA tokenization revenues accrue to custodians, transfer agents, and licensed securities distributors, and typically settle against predictable issuance schedules.
• Stablecoin revenues accrue to issuers and reserve managers and depend on payments, trading flows, and treasury movements that are inherently more cyclical.

The two businesses compete for the same engineering capacity and the same compliance perimeter even as their regulatory paths diverge. Operators reading the Tiger Research number as one combined total will struggle to allocate capital between the two until the firm or an independent source publishes a component breakdown.

What does this change for operators?

For a Korean bank, securities firm, or licensed exchange operator weighing where to concentrate engineering and compliance investment, the practical question is whether 360 trillion won measures their addressable market or simply their aspirational ceiling. The answer drives hiring, custody build-out, and the timing of any won-pegged stablecoin pilot.

Operators will read the Tiger Research number as a marker of demand-side credibility rather than as a regulatory green light. The figure describes what the market could hold under conditions of full regulatory clarity and institutional onboarding. Both conditions remain absent, and the projection warrants treatment as a directional anchor for capacity planning rather than as a revenue commitment.

Forward indicators between now and 2026

The Tiger Research ceiling moves from forecast to verifiable trajectory only when specific events occur. The signals that matter: publication of a final stablecoin issuance framework, conversion of any won-pegged pilot from sandbox to production, and a measurable flow of tokenized Korean government bond issuance settling through distributed ledger infrastructure rather than through established centralized depositories. Each milestone is observable, and by 2030 each will either confirm or compress the 360 trillion-won ceiling.