Zito Foundation has signed an MoU with Korean digital asset custodian Coda to explore institutional custody and support for ZitoSOL in the local market.
According to Monday’s announcement, the agreement includes access to institutional investors and the development of compliant custody and staking pathways.
This comes as South Korea’s Financial Services Commission is expected to finalize a digital asset regulatory framework later this year.
In February, the foundation said it would work with Hanwha Asset Management to locate a Jitosol exchange-traded fund in South Korea, pending regulatory approval. Mark Lew, head of APAC at the Zeeto Foundation, told Cointelegraph:
We are seeing significant interest from two main camps: large financial companies who want to build next generation wealth management products, and institutional entities who are interested in the yield-bearing nature of ZitoSOL for their corporate coffers.
Coda provides custody infrastructure including cold storage, MPC-based key management and institutional staking, with $20 million in digital asset insurance coverage. The company is backed by KB Kookmin Bank and other investors and has a registered VASP license and ISMS certification.
“Through KODA’s institutional-grade vaulting system, the KODA interface will allow clients to create ZitoSol directly from their SOL holdings,” Lew said.
Zito is a liquid staking protocol on the Solana (SOL) network where users stake SOL in exchange for ZitoSOL, a token usable in decentralized finance applications. Jeeto Foundation supports development, partnerships and institutional outreach.
According to CoinGecko data, Zitosol has a market capitalization of approximately $930 million. The token already has institutional exposure in Europe through the 21Shares exchange-traded product, while custodians including BitGo and Hex Trust support staking directly from custody accounts.
Connected: Grayscale launches Solana ETF, joining Bitwise in the SOL staking ETF race
Seoul tightens control on crypto market
South Korean regulators and policymakers are pushing for tighter controls on the crypto sector as they move toward a more structured regulatory framework.
In January, the country approved changes to its crypto licensing regime, tightening requirements for virtual asset service providers and expanding oversight to include major shareholders. In March, policymakers proposed limiting ownership stakes in domestic exchanges to 20%, part of broader efforts to impose tighter controls on market structure.
Regulatory pressure intensified after a payments error at crypto exchange Bithumb in early February, when users mistakenly received 620,000 bitcoins (BTC) instead of 620,000 Korean won, triggering a selloff and exposing weaknesses in exchange oversight.
Following the incident, the country’s Financial Services Commission introduced strict reconciliation requirements between exchanges’ internal ledgers and onchain balances.
Earlier this month, lawmakers began drafting legislation that would classify stable coins as foreign exchange payment instruments and require them to be real-world assets backed by assets held in trust.
Recently, the Bank of Korea called for exchange-level “circuit breakers” and stronger internal controls, with the central bank warning that the industry lacks the safeguards seen in traditional financial systems.
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