Ripple Signs Meritz as Korean Won Trading Turns to AI Tokens

Ripple has its first securities firm partner in South Korea. The company announced a strategic partnership with Meritz Securities to explore bringing Ripple Custody and Ripple's tokenisation infrastructure into Korea's capital markets.

As one of Korea's large brokers starts studying tokenized assets with a US blockchain firm, the country's won-denominated trading has already moved somewhere else. Chainalysis reports that by June 2026 AI tokens had overtaken payment tokens like XRP as the most popular theme by share of won trading.

Two tracks, then. Institutions are laying custody rails while trading attention goes elsewhere.

Meritz Starts Inside the Rules It Already Has

The announcement is worded carefully. Ripple and Meritz will start within the scope of Meritz's existing securities business and current regulation, then widen their cooperation in stages as Korea's digital asset framework develops.

Meritz is already studying a long list: spot ETFs, fractional investment, security tokens, trading platforms and won-denominated stablecoins. The firm frames these as business opportunities it is exploring ahead of digital assets entering the regulated financial system.

Ripple Custody is described as a bank-grade custody platform built for regulated financial institutions, covering the secure storage, transfer and settlement of digital assets. Fiona Murray, Ripple's managing director for Asia Pacific, said Ripple brings the full infrastructure stack across payments, custody and tokenization, backed by more than 85 licenses and a network spanning more than 60 markets globally.

Byungha Kang, managing director of Meritz's Strategic Planning Unit, put the deal in groundwork terms:

This partnership lays the foundation for combining Ripple's global digital asset infrastructure with our capital markets capabilities. As Korea's regulatory framework evolves, we will prepare safe and trusted digital asset financial services in stages.

"In stages" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and it matches how Korea's rules have actually moved.

Ripple's Korean Roster Now Runs to Four

Meritz is Ripple's fourth institutional partnership in Korea this year and its first with a securities firm. Kyobo Life Insurance is using Ripple Custody for Korea's first tokenized government bond settlement. Kbank, the country's first internet-only bank, is deploying digital asset wallet infrastructure through Ripple Custody. Jeonbuk Bank became the first Korean regional bank to adopt Ripple Payments for cross-border remittance.

That fits how Francis Kang of Korea Blockchain Week describes the mood among Korean institutions:

Every major bank and securities firm now has a digital asset team, and most are running stablecoin, tokenization, or custody pilots.

He calls the overall state of institutional engagement "preparatory mode." The rulebook is opening slowly. In February 2025 the Financial Services Commission announced a roadmap opening the market to nonprofits, exchanges, listed companies and registered professional investment corporations, though investment-driven corporate participation has yet to scale in practice. Only in February 2026 did the government begin easing a longstanding ban on corporate crypto trading. A long-delayed 22% tax on crypto profits is scheduled to take effect at the start of 2027, and the legislature has delayed it before.

Where Korea's Won Trading Actually Went

Chainalysis puts South Korea's all-in crypto economy at $449.1 billion, the largest in East Asia, ahead of Japan at $228.3 billion, Hong Kong at $192.2 billion, China at $176.3 billion and Taiwan at $140.4 billion. It grew 12.3% period over period, with an additional $51.1 billion in exchange-related flows.

The mix inside that volume has changed. By June 2026 AI cryptocurrencies were the single most popular thematically defined investment category by share of won-denominated trading volume, beating out payment tokens like XRP. JPY trading of AI-crypto assets reached only 0.91% in June 2026, making South Korean won activity 19.5 times the yen rate.

Worldcoin was the largest AI cryptocurrency in South Korea with $7.41 billion in volumes. SAHARA contributed $3.2 billion, VIRTUAL $2.7 billion, BIO $2 billion and NEAR $1.7 billion.

The two halves of this story are not really a contradiction. One is about custody, settlement and tokenization, the plumbing institutions need before they can hold digital assets at all. The other is about where won-denominated trading volume sits. A partnership about the first says nothing directly about the second, and Ripple's pitch to Korean finance does not depend on Korean traders staying with payment tokens.

What to watch is the timeline both sides keep pointing at. Meritz says it will widen cooperation as the framework develops, and Korea's next scheduled marker is the 22% profits tax due at the start of 2027, a date the legislature has moved before.