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Binance has confirmed its return to South Korea by acquiring a stake in local cryptocurrency exchange Gopax.
According to an announcement, the acquisition was funded through the Industry Recovery Initiative (IRI), a co-investment program led by Binance.
This development was first reported by Bloomberg.
Gopax, one of the largest cryptocurrency firms in South Korea, barred withdrawals last November after facing a liquidity crunch amid FTX’s downfall.
As part of this transaction, Binance will inject capital into Gopax to secure in full any potential GoFi users’ withdrawal requests against all staked deposits, including interest.
“We hope that taking this step with Gopax will further rebuild the Korean crypto and blockchain industry,” Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance, said in a statement.
Binance had to withdraw from South Korea in late 2021 due to regulatory issues. The country is still reeling from the crash of Terra, which cost investors around US$40 billion. The event also led to the collapse of Three Arrows Capital, Hodlnaut, and Voyager, among others.
See also: UST, lies, and Hodlnaut: How a rising star fell back to earth
Editing by Thu Huong Le and Arpit Nayak
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