City Labs Acquires Digital Asset Specialist Broadcaster NBN TV... Also Secures Stake in Gopax

City Labs, a KOSDAQ-listed company, announced on the 25th that it has acquired shares of Gopax, one of the top five digital asset exchanges, and 100% of the shares of NBN TV, a blockchain-specialized economic channel.

It also revealed that it is currently discussing a business agreement and mutual equity investment with Binance, the current major shareholder of Gopax and the world’s number one global digital asset exchange. The company believes that if the big picture of the four-party consortium centered on City Labs (Gopax, Binance, NBN TV) is completed, it could challenge Upbit’s position as the undisputed number one within five years.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service’s electronic disclosure system, City Labs resold convertible bonds of the 8th and 9th series, which it acquired last November, and acquired 100% of NBN TV’s shares along with bonds and BW for a total of 6 billion KRW.

The total face value of the 8th and 9th series CBs sold by the company was 3.2 billion KRW and 2.55 billion KRW respectively, acquiring NBN TV’s BW worth 3 billion KRW, loan claims of about 2.5 billion KRW from NBN Media Group, and old stock certificates worth about 500 million KRW.

On the same day, the company also disclosed that it acquired an 8.55% stake in Streamy, the operator of Gopax, one of the top five domestic digital asset exchanges. The company stated that it acquired 59,431 new shares issued through a paid-in capital increase and 16,877 old shares for a total of 5.420243672 billion KRW. Currently, Binance holds a 72.26% stake in Gopax.

City Labs is a specialist in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), but its predecessor was 'Daily Blockchain.' It has been continuing blockchain business from before and currently holds products related to decentralized identity authentication (DID) and Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) products.

Recently, the company has been streamlining its core smart city platform business division to achieve stable revenue growth and is strengthening professional personnel to enter the digital asset (blockchain) business, its future growth engine, to generate faster results. Additionally, Daol Global became the largest shareholder after participating in a paid-in capital increase at the end of 2021.

The company began full-scale blockchain R&D in 2020. After two years of R&D until the end of last year, it developed MiddleBlock, a blockchain service as a service, and has completed the first version. It also received GS (Good Software) Grade 1 certification and is currently preparing to register as an excellent procurement item with the Public Procurement Service.

NBN TV (formerly Naewoe Economic TV) changed its management rights from Seohee Construction to NBN Media Group last year. It is South Korea’s first blockchain-specialized economic channel and capital market investigative media, producing flagship programs such as Pungmun Radar and Kojubu (How to Get Rich with Coins and Stocks). Recently, it added a multi-channel platform (MCP) function for current affairs economic news and is presenting new types of content together with YouTube creators.

According to a City Labs official, “Through the acquisition of shares in the existing MetaBlock and the digital asset-specialized channel NBN TV and Gopax, as well as collaboration with Binance, we aim to raise the value of K-Coins in the global blockchain market.” He added, “We will do our best to create a sound digital asset market by leveraging the synergy of the four parties in the future and to make South Korea a powerhouse in the global blockchain market.”

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