Song Chi-hyung

Song Chi-hyung entered Seoul National University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 1998 and graduated from it, as did Naver founder Lee Hae-jinLee Hae-jinLee Hae-jin is the founder and board chairman of NAVER, associated with Korean-language search, LINE’s international expansion and global investment. His career includes Samsung SDS and leadership of NAVER and NHN. He shifted to global investment in 2017 and returned as NAVER board chairman in 2025.Open the full entry. During his studies he fulfilled his military service under a special program at the IT company Danal, and after graduating he worked for nearly five years at consulting firms and other companies.⁠[1][2]

Song co-founded DunamuDunamuDunamu is a South Korean fintech company founded in 2012 that operates Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and the securities information service Stockplus. In November 2025, it signed a comprehensive stock swap agreement with Naver Financial, the payments company under Naver, under which it would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial; as of October 2026, the deal was still awaiting regulatory approval, and the swap date had been postponed three times, to March 31, 2027.Open the full entry with Kim Hyoung-nyon and became its chairman. In the company’s early period he tried six small ventures over two years, including an e-book business and a social-media news recommendation service, and then concentrated on the one that performed best.⁠[2][1]

A securities app he developed with Kim Hyoung-nyon received investment from Kakao in 2013, bringing Dunamu into the fintech market; the app later developed into Kakao’s securities service.⁠[1]

In 2017 Dunamu launched the cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, which is South Korea’s largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume.⁠[1][2]

In December 2018 prosecutors indicted Song, Dunamu’s chief financial officer and its quant team leader on charges including fraud and forgery of electronic records, alleging that from September to November 2017 they created an Upbit account named “8,” fabricated deposits of 122.1 billion won in assets, and sold 149.1 billion won worth of nonexistent bitcoin to about 26,000 members.⁠[3]

On January 31, 2020, the Seoul Southern District Court acquitted all three, finding that the prosecution’s evidence alone could not establish that Upbit had deposited assets under the “8” account or that it had traded with virtual currency it did not hold; the court also found that existing law did not bar exchanges from trading directly.⁠[3]

The appellate court upheld the acquittals and found that some of the prosecution’s evidence had been collected unlawfully and was inadmissible. On November 9, 2023, the First Division of the Supreme Court dismissed the prosecution’s appeal, making the acquittals final.⁠[4]

In a 2021 lecture at Seoul National University, Song said that in times of change one must keep observing the market and work out how large the opportunity is, and that one should focus on what people are likely to want while sometimes being willing to give things up decisively.⁠[1]

On November 26, 2025, Naver’s board approved a plan for Naver Financial to make Dunamu a wholly owned subsidiary through a share swap at a ratio of 1 to 2.54, and the deal was announced the following day. Naver was to obtain delegated voting rights over the 19.5% stake held by Song and the 10% stake held by Kim Hyoung-nyon.⁠[5][6]

After the deal Song was to become Naver Financial’s largest shareholder, handing his voting rights to Naver as the second-largest shareholder. He described a sense of crisis as the reason for the deal and compared the current blockchain market to the early days of YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry.⁠[1][6]

On October 7, 2026, Dunamu filed a corrected disclosure postponing its share-swap date with Naver Financial to March 31, 2027; an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to approve the swap contract was scheduled for February 26, 2027. The deal still required merger clearance from the Korea Fair Trade Commission and approvals for the change of major shareholders at both companies.⁠[7]