Shinhan analyst pushes digital asset portfolio allocation as South Korea opens to blockchain tech

A top analyst at Shinhan Investment & Securities has reportedly asked Korean investors to rethink the old 60/40 stock-and-bond split. 

Park Woo-yeol, a senior analyst, now recommends a 60% stocks, 30% bonds, 8% gold, and 2% bitcoin portfolio, saying the standard 60/40 stock-and-bond portfolio has stopped doing its job. 

What changes should Korean investors make to their portfolios?

Park Woo-yeol, a senior analyst at Shinhan Investment & Securities, has laid out a 60% stocks, 30% bonds, 8% gold and 2% bitcoin mix, and asked Korean investors to ditch the current 60/40 stock and bond split for it. 

Park argued at the Korea Exchange in Seoul that the traditional portfolio is broken. For years, a 60/40 portfolio worked because when stock prices dropped, bonds usually went up, cushioning the blow, but now, stocks and bonds often fall together, meaning bonds no longer provide the safety net they once did.

To find a solution, Park’s team at Shinhan Securities (KRX: 008670) tested dividing a 10% slice of the portfolio between gold and bitcoin. They found that an 8% gold and 2% bitcoin split offered the best balance of risk and reward. The company has been tracking this model portfolio since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, Park has pointed out that traditional and crypto exchanges are now competing. For example, NASDAQ plans to launch 23-hour trading starting December 6, 2026, which would make U.S. stocks more accessible. At the same time, Korean investors are already using crypto exchanges to trade stock-like products. 

Korean investors can already trade stock- and ETF-style products on crypto exchanges, including leveraged funds such as SOXL and KORU, and those platforms run around the clock and through weekends.

Park also mentioned the fact that traditional firms are responding by buying crypto exchanges, with Mirae Asset Group as an example.

Is South Korea ready for digital assets? 

Cryptopolitan previously reported that South Korea’s Financial Services Commission published a three-stage roadmap to tokenize conventional securities. 

The first phase of the plan involves the amended securities law taking effect on February 4, 2027. That phase will allow for the tokenization of assets like corporate bonds and money-market funds for institutions. 

In later stages, the plan is to expand to all public securities and eventually use stablecoins for on-chain settlements. 

This regulatory clarity is important for major financial firms. For instance, Hanwha Investment & Securities (KRX: 003530) has already built a tokenized securities platform on the Avalanche blockchain and holds a stake in the tokenization firm Securitize. 

Matthew Dawson, co-founder of the nonprofit Ethereum Institutional, called the moment one of “regulatory clarity” coming to meet Korean institutions.

Meanwhile, retail activity is already booming again after Korea’s four largest exchanges lost a combined $364 million in the first half of the year. Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange run by Dunamu, processed about $1.04 billion in spot trading volume in just 24 hours recently. This sudden increase follows a sharp recovery in bitcoin’s price, which pushed past $80,000 in late August for the first time since mid-May.

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