Mirae Asset Moves to Buy Korbit in $100M Deal

Quick overview

Mirae Asset’s reportedly close to acquiring Korbit, South Korea’s fourth-largest crypto exchange, for somewhere between $70 million and $100 million. The financial giant signed a memorandum of understanding with Korbit’s major shareholders, according to reports from The Chosun Daily.

This would be Mirae Asset Consulting leading the deal, a non-financial arm of the broader group. They’re negotiating to buy out NXC’s 60.5% stake and SK Planet’s 31.5% holding, which together give them about 92% control.

Korbit was Korea’s first crypto exchange back in 2013 and pioneered Bitcoin-to-won trading. But being first doesn’t mean being biggest. CoinGecko data shows Korbit pulling less than 1% of daily trading volume. Upbit dominates with 64%, Bithumb takes 24%, Coinone grabs 11%. Korbit’s sitting at half a percent.

So why pay $100 million for a tiny exchange? The license. Korbit operates under Korea’s strict regulatory framework with full banking partnerships and compliance controls already in place. For a traditional finance player like Mirae Asset, buying that infrastructure beats building from scratch and waiting years for approvals.

The move fits a bigger pattern. Naver Financial agreed last month to acquire Dunamu, which runs market leader Upbit, in an all-stock deal worth about $11 billion. Binance bought Gopax in October. Traditional finance wants in, and they’re shopping for licenses rather than applying for new ones.

Mirae’s been around since the late 90s focusing on traditional finance. No crypto exposure before this. Founder Park Hyeon-joo and his wife control about 60% of Mirae Asset Consulting, the entity handling the purchase. That structure keeps the crypto play somewhat separate from the main financial operations.

There’s a wrinkle. Korbit recently got hit with AML violation allegations from Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit. The exchange had 10 days to respond before regulators made a final call. That could complicate things or at least delay closing.

Industry watchers see this as Mirae testing the waters before potentially expanding digital asset services across its broader banking and investment divisions. Start small with a compliant exchange, figure out custody and tokenization, then scale if it works.

Korea’s getting ready to implement its Virtual Asset User Protection Act in 2026. That tightens oversight even more but also clarifies the rules for institutional participation. Big financial groups like KB and Shinhan are watching what happens with Mirae and Naver. If those deals work out, expect more.

The valuation seems high for Korbit’s market share, but you’re not really paying for current volume. You’re paying for regulatory approval, existing infrastructure, and the option to scale once institutions get clearer access to spot crypto trading.

Bybit was also reportedly in talks to buy Korbit back in November, so there’s competition for these licensed platforms. That probably kept the price from dropping too much during negotiations.

Neither Mirae nor Korbit confirmed anything publicly yet. Deals at this stage can still fall apart during due diligence. But if it goes through, it marks another step in Korea’s traditional finance sector absorbing regulated crypto infrastructure.

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Sophia Cruz

Financial Writer - Asian & European Desks

Sophia is an experienced writer, reporter and newsdesk member, mostly on the financial sectors. For the past 5 years Sophia has covered a wide variety of topics such as the financial markets, economics, technology, fin-tech and trading. Sophia has been a part of the FX Leaders team since 2017 and works on producing valuable content and information for traders of all levels of experience.

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