韩华投证与未来资产披露数字资产布局差异，韩华今年已投约6500亿韩元

Hanwha Investment & Securities' recent 30 billion won investment in the Canton Network has drawn attention to the differing digital asset strategies among Korean brokerages. While Hanwha Investment & Securities continues to make strategic equity investments in the global digital asset ecosystem, Mirae Asset Group is entering the business directly through its acquisition of Korbit and platform development. Analysts say the divergence in strategy, despite looking at the same market, stems from the two companies' different calculations regarding when Korea's digital asset market will open in earnest.
According to the financial industry on the 18th, Hanwha Investment & Securities and Mirae Asset are the two Korean brokerages most actively pursuing the digital asset business.
The difference in how the two companies pursue the business is clear. Hanwha Investment & Securities is investing from multiple angles in companies representing each field of the global digital asset ecosystem, including exchanges, data, tokenization, wallets and blockchain infrastructure. In contrast, Mirae Asset is focusing on building a platform encompassing securities and digital assets centered on the cryptocurrency exchange Korbit, after acquiring its management control. While Hanwha Investment & Securities invests across the ecosystem, Mirae Asset is growing its platform business using Korbit as a base.
Hanwha Investment & Securities has accelerated its business expansion, investing more than approximately 650 billion won in digital asset-related companies this year alone. On the 16th, it invested approximately 30 billion won in Digital Asset, a blockchain infrastructure company specializing in global finance. Digital Asset is the developer of the Canton Network, an institutional blockchain in which global financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) participate. In May, it decided to additionally acquire 1,361,050 shares of Dunamu held by Kakao Investment for 597.8 billion won. In addition, it invested 18 billion won in Crescus, a corporate digital asset wallet company, and 10 billion won in CrossAngle, the operator of blockchain data platform Xangle.
Hanwha Investment & Securities also invested early in the tokenization platform Securitize. Securitize was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) this month, gaining recognition for its corporate value.
Mirae Asset, on the other hand, chose a strategy of securing an exchange directly to grow its business. In February this year, Mirae Asset Consulting signed a contract to acquire a 92.06% stake in Korbit for 133.4 billion won, and received business combination approval from the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) this month. It is the first case in which a traditional financial group has secured management control of a Korean won-based virtual asset exchange.
Mirae Asset plans to cultivate Korbit not as a simple exchange but as a core platform connecting securities and digital assets. It plans to expand digital asset businesses such as security tokens, real-world assets (RWA), stablecoins and custody centered on Korbit in line with future regulatory developments, and to pursue synergies with its securities and asset management businesses. It also plans to expand domestic and overseas investment services by linking with MAPS (Mirae Asset Portfolio Service), the global investment platform it unveiled in Hong Kong last month.
The industry analyzes that the difference in the two companies' strategies stems from their judgment on when Korea's digital asset market will grow. Hanwha Investment & Securities believes more time is needed before the domestic market opens in earnest and takes an approach of investing equity across the ecosystem, while Mirae Asset places greater emphasis on directly growing its platform business on the premise of domestic market expansion.
Kim Se-hui, a researcher at Eugene Investment & Securities, said, "Hanwha Investment & Securities appears to have chosen a method of strategically investing in key global companies rather than running the business directly, believing that it will take at least two to three years for Korea's digital asset market to grow in earnest. In contrast, Mirae Asset is interpreted as having chosen a strategy of generating business synergies centered on Korbit, expecting the market to open faster than anticipated."
Kim continued, "If Hanwha Investment & Securities' approach is a venture capital (VC)-style approach focused on capital gains from investments and securing a global network, Mirae Asset has a strong character of directly operating a platform at the financial group level to lead the market. The starting points themselves are different strategies."