Matthew Dawson, co-founder of Ethereum Institutional, made his first visit to South Korea this week as the organization, launched in July to support institutional adoption of Ethereum, intensifies its engagement with Asian financial markets.
During the trip, Dawson held meetings with major domestic banks, securities firms, asset managers, exchanges, and infrastructure companies, with the stated aim of building relationships and demonstrating that Ethereum is designed to serve institutional needs.
The timing aligns with a shifting regulatory environment in Seoul. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission unveiled its policy direction for tokenized securities on September 4, outlining concrete plans to adopt blockchain as financial market infrastructure. Four networks — Hyperledger Besu, Avalanche, Klaytn, and Polygon — were designated as priority integration candidates for the Korea Securities Depository, while public blockchains such as Ethereum were not included.
Dawson nonetheless expressed confidence in South Korea’s capacity to leverage blockchain infrastructure, citing its large financial institutions, its fintech sector, and a strong developer community as assets capable of connecting domestic finance with global innovation.
Dawson argued that the exclusion of public chains is unlikely to be permanent. He described private networks as a natural starting point but inherently limited in liquidity, interoperability with other assets, and overall utility, predicting that institutions will eventually migrate to public blockchains along a natural upgrade path. JPMorgan illustrates the pattern: despite operating its own blockchain platform, Kinexys, the bank issued its dollar-denominated deposit token, JPM Coin, on Base, an Ethereum layer-2 network.
Ethereum’s pitch to institutions rests on three pillars: security, liquidity, and, above all, neutrality. Dawson characterized Ethereum as the most neutral blockchain available, emphasizing that Korean institutions and regulators need not fear dependence on any single foreign entity controlling the underlying infrastructure. He acknowledged that Ethereum is neither the fastest nor the cheapest network, but framed its focus on security and robustness as the appropriate trade-off for hosting institutional-grade assets such as money market funds, stablecoins, bonds, and equities.
For Korean financial institutions, the principal hurdles to adoption are technical integration with legacy systems and regulatory compliance. Dawson noted that banks must reconcile new blockchain infrastructure with established internal procedures, and that cooperation with regulators will be essential. Although no meetings with the Financial Services Commission or the Financial Supervisory Service were scheduled during this visit, he indicated a desire to brief Korean regulators on Ethereum in the future.
On the ongoing debate over who should be permitted to issue Korean won-denominated stablecoins, Dawson suggested the market should accommodate both banks and non-bank issuers, pointing to Europe, where licensed e-money institutions as well as banks can issue such tokens.
Ethereum Institutional is simultaneously expanding its regional footprint. An Asia regional head based in Singapore is expected to join within six to seven weeks, and the organization is recruiting technical, business, and consulting staff across Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan.
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