Binance Re-Enters South Korea by Buying Majority Stake in Crypto Exchange GOPAX: Bloomberg

Binance has acquired a majority stake in South Korean crypto exchange GOPAX, according to a Bloomberg report on Friday.

The acquisition sees the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume re-enter South Korea's market, having closed its affiliate there in December 2020 due to low usage. Terms for the deal were not disclosed.

Binance's investment in GOPAX came via the Industry Recovery Initiative, which Binance leads and committed $1 billion to in November, in response to the fallout from the collapse of FTX.

GOPAX's parent firm Streami Inc, in which CoinDesk parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) became the second largest shareholder in 2021, is one of the largest creditors of bankrupt crypto lender Genesis, which is also a DCG subsidiary.

Following Genesis' suspension of withdrawals in November, GOPAX did the same with its yield product GoFi.

The Binance capital injected into the firm will allow withdrawals and interest payments to recommence, according to the Bloomberg report.

Neither Binance nor GOPAX responded to CoinDesk's request for comment.

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