Media found out about Binance's plans to buy one of the leading Korean crypto-exchanges
According to journalists, the largest crypto exchange is looking to enter the Asian market by acquiring local platforms
Major crypto-exchange Binance has completed its due diligence and is taking the final steps in the deal to acquire Korean platform Gopax. This was reported in an exclusive story by reporters at local publication Decenter.kr, citing an official "familiar with the state of the industry." According to him, Binance will buy a 41.2 percent stake in Gopax from its chief executive Lee Joon-Han, who will remain on the board of the exchange.
Gopax is one of Korea's top 5 exchanges by trading volume in won, along with Upbit, Bitsum, Coinone and Corbit. A series of negative developments, including the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange and the global economic crisis, have reportedly triggered liquidity problems at the exchange, forcing it to make the deal. Binance declined to comment to reporters, and a Gopax spokesman told them it could not yet confirm whether it would eventually take place.
Korea's domestic market is dominated by the Upbit exchange. In 2020, intending to enter the Korean market, Binance launched the Binance Korea platform. After only 8 months of existence, the trading platform closed due to liquidity problems in the won when the country banned local crypto exchanges from using transactions with foreign platforms in the general order book.
Nevertheless, the Asian market is probably strongly interested in Binance. At the end of November last year, the exchange bought a stake in Japan's Sakura Exchange (SEBC), a platform officially regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA). As of November 30, it closed its registration for Japanese citizens. In December, the local media once again reported on Binance's full acquisition of the Indonesian cryptocurrency exchange Tokocrypto, but the deal has not yet been officially completed.
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