Wavbridge Launches South Korea’s First Canton Network Custody Service for Institutions

Wavbridge has launched South Korea’s first custody service for digital assets issued on the institutional blockchain ‘Canton Network’, a move the firm says will give local institutions a more ‘regulation-aligned’ way to store and manage tokenized assets as real-world asset (RWA) activity accelerates globally.

The company said on Tuesday KST (Tuesday UTC) that it is now providing custody support for Canton-based assets, positioning the service as a bridge between traditional finance requirements—such as confidentiality, compliance, and operational controls—and blockchain-based issuance and settlement. Canton counts more than 600 participating global financial institutions and technology firms, including Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Citadel Securities, and DTCC, according to Wavbridge.

Canton has emerged as one of the most closely watched networks in institutional tokenization, with Wavbridge citing monthly tokenized transaction volumes exceeding $8 trillion. The network’s profile has been driven less by retail crypto momentum and more by its attempt to meet practical constraints faced by banks, clearing houses, and brokers—areas where public blockchains’ default transparency has often been viewed as a barrier to production deployment.

At the core of Canton’s pitch is architecture designed to blend public-chain interoperability with private-chain confidentiality at the Layer 1 level. That approach allows transaction details to be disclosed selectively only to relevant counterparties, an important feature for institutions that must protect sensitive trading and client information while maintaining auditability and compliance controls. Industry participants have increasingly described Canton as a ‘realistic institutional blockchain’ because it was built with regulatory compatibility and financial-market workflows in mind, rather than retrofitted after the fact.

Melvis Langyintuo, executive director of the Canton Foundation, said the Korean rollout is notable because Wavbridge is viewed as a digital asset infrastructure provider well suited to ‘regulatory alignment’. “Canton Network was built as institutional blockchain infrastructure for real financial markets,” he said, adding that the network supports secure asset issuance, custody, and settlement across banks, clearing institutions, and exchanges.

Langyintuo also pointed to South Korea as a strategic jurisdiction where policy frameworks and institutional readiness are converging, suggesting the launch could strengthen the foundations for institutional-grade digital asset operations. While the announcement did not disclose which specific tokenized products would be supported first, the focus on custody suggests early demand is likely to come from firms preparing back-office readiness for tokenized instruments rather than from speculative trading flows.

Wavbridge said it plans to expand into trading support for Canton-based digital assets later this year and confirmed it is already operating a Canton network node. The network is currently secured by more than 700 validators and more than 30 ‘super validators’, and processes over 800,000 transactions per day, according to figures shared by the company.

The development underscores growing interest among South Korean institutions in enterprise blockchain networks that can connect traditional financial infrastructure with digital assets inside a compliance-first environment. Oh Jong-wook, CEO of Wavbridge, said the company expects the custody launch to materially improve access for institutional investors, adding that use of Canton within the domestic financial sector could rise gradually as compliant infrastructure and distribution channels mature.