[Asia Exclusive] Upbit's Aggressive Moves: Acquiring Stakes in Financial Firms and Partnering with Entertainment Companies

Acquisition of 100 Billion KRW Stake in Woori Financial Group
Share Swap with BTS's Agency HYBE
Introducing New Staking Services and More

Lee Seok-woo, CEO of Dunamu, is being interviewed on the 13th at Dunamu in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Minwoo Lee] Cryptocurrency exchange Upbit achieved record-breaking performance last year, accelerating the steps of its operator Dunamu. Beyond the exchange business, Dunamu is acquiring stakes in financial companies, partnering with entertainment firms, and launching various new services.

On the 21st, Dunamu recently introduced a new service called 'Staking' on Upbit. Preparation began last year. Although it recorded an all-time high performance with sales of 2.8209 trillion KRW and operating profit of 2.5939 trillion KRW by the third quarter of last year, it aims to steadily generate profits in anticipation of the cryptocurrency price decline.

Staking is a mining method where users deposit their held coins and receive newly issued coins as rewards. It allows additional income without selling cryptocurrencies. However, once staked, it takes a long time to retrieve the deposited amount through 'unstaking.' It is a kind of bank savings account that is difficult to terminate early before maturity. Therefore, it is evaluated as a way to anchor customers within the ecosystem. In the first recruitment held on the 13th, the quota was filled within 5 minutes despite the unstaking period being undecided. On the 17th, the quota was doubled for the second recruitment but was sold out within 1 minute.

In November last year, Dunamu acquired a 1% stake in Woori Financial Group for about 100 billion KRW. This is the first time a virtual asset company has become a shareholder of a financial holding company. Some view this as a strategic move to expand negotiating power with the financial sector. At the time, Dunamu stated, "We participated as a financial investor considering the development of the financial industry and investment stability, and plan to hold the shares for a long period."

The partnership with HYBE is the most famous case. Also in November last year, Dunamu acquired 2,302,570 shares of HYBE through a third-party allotment paid-in capital increase. It acquired a 5.57% stake in HYBE for about 700 billion KRW. HYBE also invested 500 billion KRW in the same way to acquire 861,004 shares of Dunamu. Through this, HYBE holds a 2.48% stake in Dunamu, strengthening the relationship between the two companies. They plan to establish a joint venture (JV) related to non-fungible tokens (NFT) in the U.S. next year and jointly pursue various new businesses.

Going forward, they plan to actively expand business in the sports and art sectors using NFTs. In June last year, they signed a strategic business agreement related to sports NFTs with ISA Company, established by IOC athlete committee member Yuseongmin.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.