Dunamu

Dunamu was founded in April 2012 by Song Chi-hyung and Kim Hyoung-nyon; Song Chi-hyung had previously worked at the South Korean mobile payment company Danal. Song Chi-hyung later became chairman, and Kim Hyoung-nyon vice chairman.⁠[1][2][2][3]

In February 2013, Dunamu received investment from K Cube Ventures (now Kakao Ventures); in February 2014 it launched the securities information service Stockplus; in February 2015 it received investment from Qualcomm Ventures and Woori Technology Investment, and in September of the same year it received investment from Kakao and was entrusted with operating Daum’s financial information service.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In October 2017, Dunamu launched the digital asset exchange Upbit. Lee Sirgoo became CEO in late 2017 and is widely credited with leading the launch of Upbit and growing it into South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange; he was reappointed in 2020 and again in 2023.⁠[1][4][5][5]

In March 2018, Dunamu established the investment subsidiary Dunamu & Partners; the same year it launched the blockchain subsidiary Lambda256, and in May it released UBCI, South Korea’s first digital asset index. In March 2019, Lambda256 was spun off as an independent company, and the blockchain platform Luniverse officially launched. In March 2024, Lambda256 went on to launch Nodit, a node and data platform for Web3 developers.⁠[1][1][1][4]

In December 2018, prosecutors indicted Song Chi-hyung, the company’s CFO, and the head of its quant team on charges including fraud and forgery of electronic records, alleging that from September to November 2017 they opened an account named “8” on Upbit, fabricated deposits of about KRW 122.1 billion in assets, and carried out continuous fictitious trades to induce members to trade, selling about KRW 149.1 billion worth of Bitcoin that did not actually exist to about 26,000 members.⁠[6][6][6][6]

In November 2019, 342,000 ether were stolen from Upbit, worth about KRW 58 billion (about $41.5 million) at the time.⁠[7][7]

On January 31, 2020, the Seoul Southern District Court acquitted Song Chi-hyung and the two others at first instance, finding that the prosecution’s evidence alone could not establish that Upbit had deposited assets in the “8” account, and that it was difficult to conclude Upbit had traded with virtual currencies it did not hold.⁠[6][6][6]

In October 2021, Dunamu became South Korea’s first registered virtual asset service provider.⁠[1]

The appellate court upheld the acquittal and found that some of the prosecution’s evidence had been gathered unlawfully and could not be used as evidence. On November 9, 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the prosecution’s appeal, making the acquittal of Song Chi-hyung and the two others final.⁠[8][8][8][8]

On November 21, 2024, South Korea’s National Police Agency announced that the 2019 theft of ether from Upbit had been carried out by the North Korean hacker groups Lazarus and Andariel, based on evidence including North Korean IP addresses, the flow of funds, traces of North Korean terminology, and material obtained in cooperation with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was the first time a South Korean investigative agency had officially confirmed North Korean involvement in a cryptocurrency hack. About 57% of the stolen ether was exchanged for Bitcoin at prices 2.5% below market, and the rest was laundered through 51 overseas exchanges in 13 countries. Part of the stolen assets was found on a Swiss exchange in 2020, and after four years of proving their source, police returned 4.8 bitcoin to Upbit in October 2024.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][9]

On February 25, 2025, the Financial Intelligence Unit under South Korea’s Financial Services Commission announced a three-month partial business suspension against Dunamu, during which new customers could not transfer virtual assets out or in; CEO Lee Sirgoo received a reprimand warning, and a total of nine executives and employees were disciplined. The sanctions were based on the agency’s on-site inspection from August to October 2024, which found that Dunamu had conducted 44,948 virtual asset transfers with 19 unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers and committed numerous customer identification violations. Dunamu said it understood the intent of the regulators and would carefully discuss its next steps.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

On February 28, 2025, Dunamu filed an administrative lawsuit seeking to overturn the sanction and applied for a stay of execution; on March 27, the court granted the stay, allowing Upbit to continue accepting new users while the case proceeded.⁠[11][11]

On May 29, 2025, Dunamu announced that CEO Lee Sirgoo would step down on July 1 and move into an advisory role, to be succeeded by PANKO CEO Oh Kyoung-suk. Oh Kyoung-suk passed both the certified public accountant exam and the bar exam, worked at Samil PwC, served as a judge at the Suwon District Court and as a research judge at the Supreme Court, and practiced law at Kim & Chang before joining PANKO in 2016.⁠[5][5][5][5]

In August 2025, Dunamu launched the digital asset custody service Upbit Custody; in September it announced GIWA, an Ethereum-based layer-2 blockchain.⁠[1][1]

On September 25, 2025, Naver was reported to be in talks with Dunamu on a comprehensive stock swap that would make Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial. At the time, Dunamu’s major shareholders were Song Chi-hyung (25.5%), Kim Hyoung-nyon (13.1%), Kakao Investment (10.6%), and Woori Technology Investment (7.2%). Naver Financial and Dunamu both confirmed that discussions were under way but said no specific agreement had been reached. After the news broke, Dunamu’s shares on the over-the-counter market fell about 14% intraday.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12][12]

On November 6, 2025, the Financial Intelligence Unit fined Dunamu KRW 35.2 billion in connection with the same case, and Dunamu filed an administrative lawsuit in response. At a hearing on December 4, Dunamu’s side argued that there was no evidence the company had known at the time that it might be transacting with unregistered service providers, and that finding gross negligence was unjust.⁠[13][13][13][13]

On November 26, 2025, the boards of Dunamu, Naver Financial, and Naver each approved a comprehensive stock swap between the two companies: Naver Financial would acquire all of Dunamu’s issued shares, with Dunamu shareholders receiving 2.5422618 Naver Financial shares for each Dunamu share. Using the discounted cash flow method, the per-share exchange values were KRW 439,252 for Dunamu and KRW 172,780 for Naver Financial. After completion, Dunamu would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial, continue to exist as an independent legal entity, and join the Naver group of affiliates. The original schedule called for a shareholders’ meeting on May 22, 2026, and completion of the swap on June 30, 2026.⁠[14][14][14][14][14][14][14][15][15]

The deal requires a number of government approvals, including merger approval from the Fair Trade Commission, and the progress of these approvals could delay the schedule or even cause the deal to fall through. On November 27, the three companies held a joint press conference at Naver’s headquarters building, 1784, announcing plans to invest KRW 10 trillion over five years after completion to develop South Korea’s AI and Web3 ecosystem.⁠[14][14][15][15]

Upbit had recently suffered a hacking theft of about KRW 44.5 billion. Current law has no direct provisions on sanctions or compensation liability for virtual asset service providers in hacking incidents, but there were concerns that the incident could affect the merger review; on December 1, Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin said it was not a matter that could simply be overlooked.⁠[13][13][13][13]

On March 30, 2026, Dunamu filed a corrected disclosure postponing the swap date from June 30 to September 30 and the shareholders’ meeting from May 22 to August 18. Naver said the adjustment reflected ongoing licensing procedures and changes in the regulatory framework.⁠[16][16][17]

Dunamu’s 2025 revenue was about KRW 1.56 trillion, down 10% year on year; operating profit fell 26.7% to KRW 869.3 billion, and net profit fell 27.9% to KRW 708.9 billion. The company attributed the decline to lower trading volumes during a slowdown in the crypto market.⁠[18][18][18][18]

In April 2026, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled in Dunamu’s favor and overturned the Financial Intelligence Unit’s three-month partial business suspension. The court found that while the rules for transactions of KRW 1 million or more were clear, the regulations for smaller transfers were not specific enough, and the regulator had not given specific guidance on what measures were required; even if the company’s measures looked insufficient in hindsight, it was difficult to conclude that it had failed to meet its obligations through intent or gross negligence.⁠[11][11][11][11]

On April 3, 2026, the Financial Supervisory Service found that the report Dunamu filed on March 30 contained material omissions on matters relevant to investment decisions, including plans for future corporate restructuring, and issued a correction order under Article 164 of the Capital Markets Act.⁠[19][19]

On April 15, 2026, Dunamu filed a supplementary disclosure in response to the correction order: after the swap, both sides would continue to run their existing businesses, but no specific corporate restructuring had been decided; Naver would secure voting rights through a shareholders’ agreement with Naver Financial’s largest and second-largest individual shareholders, so that Naver Financial would remain its consolidated subsidiary. Under an investor agreement signed by the parties, an IPO committee for Naver Financial would be formed within one year of the swap’s completion, with the aim of listing within five years, extendable by up to two years; whether to list, and the timing and structure of any listing, had not been decided.⁠[20][20][21][21][21]

On July 6, 2026, Dunamu and Naver Financial filed further corrected disclosures postponing the swap date from September 30 to December 31, the shareholders’ meeting from August 18 to November 19, and the shareholder record date from July 22 to October 22. Naver Financial said the deal required approvals including merger approval from the Fair Trade Commission, and that the Digital Asset Basic Act under discussion could also have an effect.⁠[22][22][22][23][23]

On October 7, 2026, Dunamu and Naver Financial filed a third set of schedule corrections: the swap date was postponed from December 31, 2026, to March 31, 2027; the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to consider the swap agreement from November 19, 2026, to February 26, 2027; and the shareholder record date from October 22 to January 18, 2027, with the period for notice of dissent and the period for exercising appraisal rights pushed back accordingly.⁠[24][24][24][24][24]

The two sides said the deal’s basic structure, purpose, and direction were unchanged, the exchange ratio remained the same, and they were cooperating with reviews by the relevant authorities. The deal still required a merger review by the Fair Trade Commission, as well as financial approvals related to the change in Naver Financial’s major shareholder and the notification of a change in Dunamu’s major shareholder. In September 2026, a proposed cap on major shareholders’ stakes in exchanges discussed by researchers was seen as potentially conflicting with the minimum stake that holding companies must hold in subsidiaries; financial regulators said at the time that the cap had not been decided.⁠[25][25][25][25][25][25][25][25]

As of October 2026, Dunamu’s main services included the Upbit exchange, Upbit NFT (launched in November 2021), the data platform Upbit Data Lab (launched in April 2025), and the securities service Stockplus; the company’s CEO was Oh Kyoung-suk, and its headquarters were at 369 Gangnam-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul.⁠[4][4][1][1]

Dunamu: Official website: https://www.dunamu.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[24]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dunamu (opens in a new window)⁠[1]