{"id":33173,"date":"2026-05-28T10:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/33173\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T10:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T10:49:11","slug":"korean-brokerages-race-to-acquire-crypto-exchange-stakes-amid-regulatory-easing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/33173\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean Brokerages Race to Acquire Crypto Exchange Stakes Amid Regulatory Easing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SamsungSamsung Securities.<\/p>\n

Korean brokerages are accelerating their race to acquire stakes in cryptocurrency exchanges as financial regulators ease the long-standing principle of separating finance and virtual assets. With overseas platforms already competing fiercely by combining stock and crypto trading, domestic financial firms are moving quickly to secure positions in digital asset infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Three Samsung Group affiliates \u2014 Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS and Samsung Card \u2014 will invest a combined 612.8 billion won to acquire a 4.0 percent stake (1.39 million shares) in Dunamu, the operator of Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, according to the financial investment industry on Friday. Samsung Securities will hold 2 percent, while Samsung Card and Samsung SDS will each take 1 percent.<\/p>\n

Samsung Securities plans to partner with Dunamu to expand security token offering (STO) issuance and distribution as well as virtual asset services. Samsung Card is reviewing the possibility of linking digital asset payment services to its integrated financial platform “Monimo,” while Samsung SDS aims to combine its existing IT capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and security with Dunamu’s blockchain operating experience to strengthen its next-generation digital finance infrastructure business targeting the financial sector.<\/p>\n

\"null<\/p>\n

The moves coincide with the rapid blurring of boundaries between virtual assets and traditional financial markets. Although Korea has yet to fully establish regulations on stablecoins and tokenization, financial firms are preemptively building cooperative structures with crypto exchanges, anticipating that an environment where stocks, virtual assets, STOs and stablecoins are traded within a single app will become reality, analysts said. In the United States and other overseas markets, such “super app” competition has already become visible.<\/p>\n

The investment race among financial firms continues. Ahead of Samsung Securities, Hana Financial Group decided to acquire a 6.55 percent stake in Dunamu through Hana Bank for approximately 1 trillion won. Existing shareholder Hanwha Investment & Securities also moved to acquire additional shares. Hanwha Investment & Securities became the third-largest shareholder by additionally acquiring 1.36 million Dunamu shares held by Kakao Investment for 597.8 billion won. Its ownership rose from 5.94 percent to 9.84 percent.<\/p>\n

Mirae Asset Group is pursuing the acquisition of a 92 percent stake in Korbit through its non-financial affiliate Mirae Asset Consulting, while Korea Investment & Securities will sign an agreement on Saturday with global exchange OKX to acquire a 40 percent stake in domestic exchange Coinone.<\/p>\n

Analysts say shifts in regulators’ stance have also influenced this trend. The “finance-crypto separation” is not a statutory provision but a principle that has effectively barred direct participation by the financial sector since 2017. However, the atmosphere has recently changed. Financial Services Commission Chairman Lee Eok-won hinted at the possibility of regulatory easing at a press briefing on the 21st, saying, “There is a need to comprehensively examine global market changes and discussions on virtual asset institutionalization.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Securities. Korean brokerages are accelerating their race to acquire stakes in cryptocurrency exchanges as financial regulators ease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[457],"tags":[3120,5083,21175,12594,337,21174,864,984,21176,21177,2818],"class_list":["post-33173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea-exchange","tag-cryptocurrency-exchange","tag-dunamu","tag-finance-crypto-separation","tag-hana-financial","tag-korea-exchange","tag-korean-brokerages","tag-krx","tag-samsung-securities","tag-security-token-offering","tag-stablecoin-regulation","tag-upbit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}