[Wavebridge × Jito] The White Paper on Korea's Spot Digital Asset ETF, Co-Authored by Eight Institutions

For 2026 KBW, Wavebridge has published "The White Paper on Introducing a Domestic Spot Digital Asset ETF," planned jointly with the Jito Foundation and co-authored by eight institutions from Korea and abroad. The white paper works through what it actually takes to make a spot ETF function in Korea once regulation permits it — drawing on hands-on experience across issuance, liquidity, pricing, custody, staking, and law.

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What the White Paper Covers

Ⅰ. Background | Wavebridge
Why Now for Digital Asset Investment Products: Korea's Prerequisites and Proving Ground

Ⅱ. Market & Product Structure | Jito Foundation · JET Korea
Global Crypto ETFs and the Rise of On-Chain Yield Products

Ⅲ. Product Viability & Roadmap | Digital Asset Team, Hanwha Asset Management
Market Structure and Scalability for Introducing a Korean-Style Digital Asset Spot ETF

Ⅳ. Staking Operations | Solana Company (NASDAQ: HSDT)
Staking, LSTs, and On-Chain Yield in Financial Products

Ⅴ. Creation & Liquidity | Meritz Securities
Creation, Redemption and Liquidity Provision in Digital Asset Spot ETFs

Ⅵ. Pricing & Indexing | FnGuide Digital Asset Team
Pricing and Indexing Framework for the Introduction of Digital Asset ETFs in Korea

Ⅶ. Custody | Korea Digital Asset Co. (KODA)
Digital Asset Spot ETF Custody Infrastructure

Ⅷ. Legal | Shin & Kim LLC · Ryonho Kang, , Attorney
Legal Issues and Future Direction for Digital Asset ETFs

One Product, Eight Front Lines

A spot digital asset ETF is not a product any single institution can complete on its own. The asset manager that designs the product, the prime broker that sources and settles the assets, the index provider that builds the price and index, the custodian that safekeeps the assets, the infrastructure that runs staking, and the legal counsel that underpins all of it — a product only holds together when these different domains interlock.

This white paper was written by the eight institutions that actually own those domains. Alongside co-planners Wavebridge and the Jito Foundation, contributors include Meritz Securities, Hanwha Asset Management, Solana Company, FnGuide, Korea Digital Asset (KODA), and the law firm Shin & Kim — each bringing the real-world challenges it faces on its own front line into a single volume. Rather than one institution's viewpoint, it sets out what each participant essential to a working product must prove out from its own position.

Two Thresholds

A new financial product crosses two thresholds: is it permitted by regulation, and does it actually work?

Korea's conversation now stands at the first. In its "2026 Second-Half Economic Growth Strategy," the government said it would support amending the Capital Markets Act to recognize virtual assets as ETF underlying assets, and a related amendment has been introduced in the National Assembly and is under review. But what regulation permits and what actually works are two different things. How to set the price, how to safekeep the assets, and how to handle creation, redemption, and liquidity are not settled by legislation alone.

This white paper focuses on that second threshold — the problem of "working," for which Korea has no precedent yet.