BDACS, a digital asset institutional custody firm in Korea, announced that it has signed a partnership with enterprise blockchain firm Ripple, the provider of digital asset infrastructure for financial institutions.
This partnership reportedly aligns with the Financial Services Commission’s (FSC) announced roadmap for “regulatory approval of institutional participation in the digital asset market.”
By providing secure XRP and RLUSD custody services for institutional investors, this partnership will “support the growth of XRPL developers and its ecosystem, expand the usability of Ripple’s stablecoin (RLUSD), and leverage synergies with Busan, Korea’s blockchain regulation-free zone.”
Working together, BDACS and Ripple aim to advance the institutional-level custody market and “increase technical and commercial opportunities within South Korea.”
BDACS’s CEO, Harry Ryoo, said:
“BDACS will provide a secure and reliable custody service to support Ripple’s pioneering blockchain initiatives. Ultimately, this partnership will enable both companies to enhance and expand the digital asset ecosystem.”
BDACS will utilize Ripple Custody, which provides “institutional-grade software infrastructure for crypto custodians, exchanges, OTC desks and more to safely store, manage and access digital assets while maintaining bank-grade security.”
The amount of crypto assets custodied is “expected to reach $16T by 2030, and moreover, 10% of the world’s GDP is expected to be tokenized by 2030.”
Custody is the foundation of any digital assets business, “enabling new use cases across tokenization, asset management, stablecoin issuance and more.”
BDACS supports both XRP and RLUSD. XRP is a digital asset purpose-built for payments and “native to the XRPL, a decentralized layer 1 blockchain renowned for its decade-long reliability and stability in tokenizing and exchanging crypto-native and real-world assets.”
RLUSD is an enterprise-grade, USD-denominated stablecoin “created with trust, utility, and compliance and backed by Ripple’s years of experience working with crypto and the existing financial system.”
Fiona Murray, Managing Director of APAC at Ripple said:
“We’re excited to partner with BDACS to bring Ripple’s custody solution to institutional investors in South Korea. With the crypto market surging and new opportunities emerging under the FSC’s regulatory roadmap, we view this collaboration as a critical step in expanding the digital asset ecosystem.”
With the Korean regulatory environment shifting positively—allowing corporate participation in digital assets and “establishing a framework for stablecoins—the demand for specialized digital asset custody services is expected to surge.”
In this evolving market, BDACS is said to be “one of the first institutional-grade custody providers, enabling investors to securely trade XRP, RLUSD, and other digital assets within Korea’s regulatory ecosystem.”
With its digital asset infrastructure, Ripple is positioned “to provide the core services that financial institutions need to tokenize, store, exchange and move digital assets.”
Ripple has experience in the digital asset space and “holds 60+ regulatory licenses and registrations in various jurisdictions.”
BDACS has been expanding its presence in the global digital asset market, particularly in areas such “as tokenized securities (STO) and real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and through strategic partnerships with major protocols such as Avalanche and Polymesh.”
In December of last year, BDACS established a partnership with Woori Bank, one of Korea’s commercial banks, “to advance digital asset custody services.”