Korea's OG crypto exchange joins a $1T finance family — and gets a Digital X makeover 🪙

Mirae Asset Consulting, an affiliate of South Korea's Mirae Asset Group, has completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in domestic crypto exchange Korbit, becoming the exchange's largest shareholder following regulatory procedures. Korbit said in a Thursday announcement that its operating entity, Korbit Co., Ltd., remains unchanged and that login, trading, deposits and withdrawals will continue without interruption. Customer assets will remain segregated from company assets under South Korea's Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users, and personal data processing requires no action from users.

Mirae Asset Consulting now holds a 97.15% stake in Korbit. The company said in February it had agreed to acquire a 92.06% stake for 133.48 billion won ($91 million) to expand into digital asset businesses; the higher figure reflects shares obtained through the regulatory process. Mirae Asset Group had reported assets under management of $1 trillion as of May. The consulting affiliate also oversees the group's hotels and golf course businesses.

Founded in 2013, Korbit is South Korea's first homegrown cryptocurrency exchange and one of five won-based crypto exchanges operating in the country. South Korean exchanges must secure partnerships with banks to offer fiat on- and off-ramp services, and the country is among the world's most active retail crypto markets, with much of exchange revenue tied to trading fees.

In an internal email to employees reported by Herald Business on Thursday, Mirae Asset founder and global strategy officer Park Hyeon-joo said Korbit will rebrand as Digital X. Park described Digital X as central to the group's "Mirae Asset 3.0" strategy, which combines digital assets with traditional finance, and outlined plans to expand into real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, security token offerings, stablecoins and traditional asset products. Park said the exchange would prioritize anti-money laundering controls, customer verification, information security and fraud detection as South Korea develops its crypto and tokenized securities rules.

The acquisition marks the first time a traditional Korean financial group's affiliate has taken a controlling stake in a domestic crypto exchange. A similar trend has played out elsewhere in Asia: Japan's SBI Group agreed to acquire Tokyo-based crypto exchange Bitbank for $289 million and to purchase a majority stake in Singapore-based Coinhako.