Naver, Dunamu to invest over $6.8 billion to drive global expansion into Web3 market

 
Naver and Dunamu — operators of Korea’s leading internet portal and cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, respectively — will invest over 10 trillion won ($6.8 billion) through Naver’s fintech arm over the next five years to drive their expansion into the global Web3 market.
 
The announcement follows Wednesday’s news that Naver Financial will acquire Dunamu as a wholly owned subsidiary through a share swap.
 
At a joint press conference at Naver’s headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi, on Thursday, Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon hinted at the possibility of a future Nasdaq listing. She also addressed investor concerns over dual listing, given that Naver Financial includes Naver Pay, a digital wallet platform and one of the company’s major growth engines.
 
“The intention of this deal is not to position Naver Financial as an independently listed subsidiary,” Choi said. “Rather, by partnering with [Dunamu], which has a higher market value than Naver Financial, we aim to strengthen our competitiveness in global markets and improve our access to capital if needed.”
 
The press conference drew heightened attention as two of Korea’s most reclusive tech leaders — Lee Hae-jin, Naver’s founder and chairman, and Song Chi-hyung, Dunamu’s co-founder and chairman — both made rare public appearances.
 
Song noted that the global capital market is undergoing a shift as blockchain-based services rapidly grow, a trend he believes will expand from financial applications into everyday services, such as search, shopping and content. 
 
“At this pivotal moment, if Dunamu, Naver Financial and Naver combine their strengths in technology, as well as customer trust and reach, they can secure global competitiveness,” he said.
 
If approved by shareholders, the integration will lift Naver Financial’s market value to 20 trillion won. Under the deal, each Dunamu share will be exchanged for 2.54 Naver Financial shares.
 
The announcement sparked pushback from some Dunamu shareholders, who have long bet on a standalone Nasdaq listing amid the crypto market’s growth, as Dunamu’s market value was assessed at 15.13 trillion won, more than triple Naver Financial’s 4.93 trillion won.
 
However, once differences in total outstanding shares are taken into account, the per-share exchange ratio is set at 1 to 2.54, reflecting market valuations of 439,252 won per Dunamu share and 172,780 won per Naver Financial share.
 
Meanwhile, Upbit temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals on Thursday after detecting an unauthorized transfer of Solana-based assets worth about 44.5 billion won from its internal systems — an incident that occurred only hours after the merger deal was finalized. The breach, discovered at around 4:42 a.m., affected 24 Solana network tokens, including BONK, Jupiter, Raydium, Pyth Network, Render Token, Solana and USD Coin.
 
Dunamu said it quickly evaluated the damage and will use Upbit’s own funds to ensure customers incur no losses. The estimated scale of the breach, initially reported at 54 billion won, was later revised to 44.5 billion won. Upbit said it suspended all deposits and withdrawals, transferred remaining funds to cold wallets and notified the Korea Internet and Security Agency and the Financial Supervisory Service.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]