Mirae Asset Financial Group has signed a memorandum of understanding to buy a controlling stake in South Korean crypto exchange Korbit, according to local reports from Maeil Business News Korea and The Chosun Daily. The MOU values Korbit at between 100 billion and 140 billion won, or roughly 70 million to 100 million dollars, and would hand one of Korea’s largest financial groups direct control of a licensed domestic exchange.
Bitcoin traded near 87,500 dollars on Monday, almost flat on the day, while Korean exchange ownership moved faster than prices. For traders who follow Korea’s KRW books as a liquidity signal, a trillion-won asset manager buying into the regulated core of that market is the story.
Deal sketch: 92% stake via a non-financial arm
The buyer is Mirae Asset Consulting, a non-financial affiliate that the group uses for real estate and consulting businesses. Maeil reports that Mirae Asset Consulting signed the MOU to acquire most of the 60.5 percent stake held by NXC, the Nexon holding company, and the 31.5 percent stake held by SK Planet, for a combined 92 percent of Korbit’s equity here.
Industry sources quoted by Maeil and Chosun put the price tag in a 100 to 140 billion won range. That lines up with estimates in English-language coverage from The Korea Times, CoinDesk and Cryptonews, which all cite the same band.
None of the public reports include binding share purchase agreements or closing dates. Cryptonews notes that neither Mirae nor Korbit has publicly confirmed detailed terms and that the deal remains subject to due diligence and further negotiation. For now the receipt is the MOU itself and the matching stake and valuation ranges across Korean business dailies.
“Mirae Asset Group is in talks to acquire Korbit, South Korea’s fourth-largest crypto exchange,” on-chain analyst Wu Blockchain wrote on X, citing The Chosun Daily.
Why buy a 0.5% share exchange
Korbit is small on volume but large on licenses. CoinGecko puts its 24 hour volume around 5.6 million dollars and gives it about 0.5 percent of local trading in a recent window, compared with roughly 64 percent for Upbit, 24 percent for Bithumb and 11 percent for Coinone here and as summarized in the Cryptonews piece.
That still makes Korbit one of Korea’s five fully licensed KRW exchanges with real name bank partnerships. Korbit runs its won orderbook through Shinhan Bank and sits inside the same regulatory perimeter as Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone and Gopax, which together form the Digital Asset Exchange Association and work directly with the Financial Intelligence Unit on enforcement against unregistered platforms here.
Under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, which came into force in July 2024, exchanges must keep at least 80 percent of customer crypto in cold storage, segregate client cash at partner banks and carry insurance or reserves against hacks here. Buying Korbit gives Mirae a venue that already runs under that rule set and already passes Shinhan’s onboarding and monitoring standards.
That compliance footprint is the scarce part of the asset. Research from the Korea Economic Daily and Odaily shows that the top three exchanges capture about 99 percent of domestic KRW volume, leaving Korbit and Gopax fighting over the final single digit share, yet the regulator has kept the list of licensed KRW venues tight here. Mirae is not buying flow. Mirae is buying a regulatory position with a bank link and a VASP license attached.
Tradfi’s grab for Korean licenses
Mirae’s move lands a month after Naver Financial agreed to acquire Dunamu, Upbit’s operator, in an all stock deal worth 15.13 trillion won according to Reuters. In that transaction Naver is buying the market leader. In this one Mirae is buying a long tail venue with almost no share but a clean regulatory chassis.
Maeil’s English edition points to a more urgent driver. It highlights research showing roughly 124.3 trillion won in crypto related funds flowing offshore via blockchain rails in the first nine months of 2025 and estimates that Koreans paid about 2.73 trillion won in fees to overseas exchanges this year alone here. Local brokers and banks watch Binance and others capture that revenue. Mirae now positions itself to pull some of that activity onshore under its own brand.
Global peers already started to do the same in other jurisdictions. Finance Magnates points out that IG Group bought Australian exchange Independent Reserve for about 87 million pounds in September and that Robinhood closed its Bitstamp acquisition in June to pick up licenses in Europe, the United States and Asia here. Mirae is following that playbook in a market where local rules make greenfield licensing slow and politically sensitive.
Regulation, AUM and what changes for Korean books
Mirae Asset now manages around 1,000 trillion won in client assets across its group, according to an official update published in September that put AUM above the 1,000 trillion won mark, or about 721 billion dollars here. That balance sheet now sits on the other side of a venue that, while small, clears KRW spot trades under VAUPA, Shinhan Bank monitoring and FIU scrutiny.
Regulators spent the last eighteen months tightening that framework. The Virtual Asset User Protection Act forces exchanges to keep most user crypto in cold wallets and to run real time surveillance for abusive trading. Law firm briefings and academic work on VAUPA describe a structure that assigns liability for unfair practices and gives the Financial Services Commission and Financial Supervisory Service fast track enforcement tools, including suspension orders and criminal referrals here and here.
For market structure this sets up a three pillar contest. Naver will anchor Upbit at scale. Bithumb and Coinone remain independent but sit inside the same VAUPA and real name rails. Mirae now has a path to fold Korbit into a broader securities, ETF and wealth platform that already reaches deep into Korean retail and institutional channels.
Traders should watch for three concrete follow-ups. First, whether Korea’s regulators clear a full change of control and whether they attach any new conditions to Korbit’s license. Second, whether Mirae injects liquidity or market maker arrangements that lift Korbit’s daily volume from the current mid single digit millions. Third, whether other domestic financial groups like KB Financial or Shinhan respond with their own exchange buys rather than waiting for new licenses.
The MOU shows that a top tier Korean financial group now treats a VAUPA compliant exchange license as an asset it wants to own outright. In a market where Upbit still controls the bulk of KRW volume and Bitcoin trades near all time highs, that choice matters more than Korbit’s current 0.5 percent share suggests.
