Hanwha Investments and Securities, the brokerage arm of the Hanwha Group, announced that it has agreed to buy a 6.15% stake in Dunamu for just over $52 million. Dunamu operates the Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit.
The acquisition is expected to take place on February 22. According to an investment official from Hanwha, the move is a long-term investment for the company.
“As we are focusing on developing more digital services, we anticipate to achieve meaningful results in fintech related businesses. Since Dunamu already has a high-skilled innovative finance service, we decided to cooperate with the financial technology firm.”
Dunamu, as the operator of a major crypto exchange in South Korea, has been introducing more digital assets recently. This includes the Bitcoin “fear and greed” index which is intended to help digital asset investors make better decisions.
Hanwha Investment One Of The Largest In South Korea
Hanwha is one of the largest financial and industrial conglomerates in South Korea. Along with Hyundai, LG, SK Group, and Samsung. They have continually been increasing growing its involvement in the crypto and blockchain industries through its subsidiaries.
Last July Hanwha participated in a $3 million funding round in crypto startup CrossAngle. In an effort to support the development of institutional crypto data services. In January of 2021, Hanwha Investment and Securities took part in a $31 million funding in Stellar-based blockchain startup Lightnet. During the same month participated in a funding round for the Singapore-based digital securities platform iSTOX.
A subsidiary of the insurance company Hanwha Group has been selling insurance products to Korean cryptocurrency exchanges since 2018 and that includes compensation for losses due to hacker attacks.
For those who don’t remember, Upbit was a victim of a hack back in November of 2019. As a result, the hackers were able to steal 342,000 ETH, which at the time was worth $48.2 million.
