World’s biggest crypto company, Binance has acquired a majority stake in South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Gopax as part of its ‘Industry Recovery Initiative’ (IRI).
The investment, the financial details of which are undisclosed, marks the company’s return to the South Korean market after its exit in 2021.
Announcing the deal, Binance says that in November, Gopax “halted the withdrawal of principal and interest payments in its decentralised finance (DeFi) service GoFi as a consequence of the upstream challenges experienced by Genesis Global Capital, LLC”.
“Since then, Gopax has been working closely with local regulators and industry partners in an effort to raise funds to make affected users whole,” it adds.
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With the acquisition, Binance says it plans to “inject capital into Gopax with the objective of securing in full any potential GoFi users’ withdrawal requests against all staked deposits, including interest”.
The firm adds it will also work closely with Gopax to improve user education and blockchain awareness through the Binance Academy, an open access blockchain and crypto learning portal that provides free educational resources to users.
It says it is also committed to working with South Korean regulators and virtual asset stakeholders “to explore how Binance can leverage its technology and liquidity to support the local ecosystem”.
Towards the end of 2022, Binance launched the IRI as a co-investment project to support organisations that have been negatively impacted by market forces and which are willing to contribute to the future of the Web3 ecosystem. Along with financial aid, the IRI also aims to provide companies with support plans.
“Binance has a responsibility to protect our users, as well as our industry,” says Changpeng Zhao, Binance founder and CEO. “The Industry Recovery Initiative was created to support promising companies that were negatively impacted by the events of last year.
“We hope that taking this step with Gopax will further rebuild the Korean crypto and blockchain industry.”
