Samsung Is Betting $408 Million That Korea’s Crypto Future Runs Through Upbit

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

There’s a quiet race happening inside South Korea’s financial sector, and Samsung just placed one of its biggest bets yet.

Three of Samsung’s most powerful affiliates Samsung Securities, Samsung SDS, and Samsung Card announced on May 28 that they are jointly investing 612.8 billion won, over $400 million, to acquire a combined 4% stake in Dunamu, the company that operates Upbit, South Korea’s dominant crypto exchange.

The shares are being purchased from a cluster of Kakao-linked sellers, including Kakao Investment, Kakao Ventures, and two affiliated funds. Each share is priced at 439,250 won, a figure that aligns with the valuation used in Dunamu’s ongoing share swap with Naver Financial. At that price, Dunamu carries a total valuation of approximately 15.3 trillion won-just over $11 billion.

Many investors in the market believe this is not a passive financial investment but a strategic entry.

Why Upbit, and Why Now

Upbit is a large crypto exchange that controls more than 80% of South Korea’s virtual asset trading volume, making it the single most important piece of regulated crypto infrastructure in the country. For any financial institution serious about digital assets in Korea, Dunamu is the door you have to knock on.

Samsung Securities is acquiring the largest slice at 2%, with Samsung SDS and Samsung Card each taking 1%. Their individual motivations reveal just how deliberately this deal was structured.

Samsung Securities has stated it intends to build cooperation with Dunamu across security token issuance, distribution, and virtual-asset services. Samsung SDS, the group’s IT and cloud arm, plans to layer in artificial intelligence, data management, and blockchain capabilities on top of Dunamu’s existing infrastructure.

Samsung Card, meanwhile, has its eyes on something more consumer-facing: digital asset payments. If won-based stablecoins are introduced, Samsung Card says it could enable crypto payments directly through Monimo, Samsung Financial’s all-in-one app.

The Bigger Picture Behind the Deal

South Korea is quietly becoming one of the most active regulatory environments for digital assets in Asia. The government is actively developing frameworks for stablecoins, tokenized securities, and blockchain-based payment systems. That policy pipeline is not background noise for companies like Samsung but the entire reason this deal exists.

Samsung is buying access to the infrastructure that will sit at the center of Korea’s regulated digital-asset economy once that framework clicks into place.

Earlier this month, Hana Bank signed a separate agreement to acquire a 6.55% stake in Dunamu for approximately 1 trillion won, a deal expected to close on June 15 that would make the bank Dunamu’s fourth-largest shareholder. That investment was tied to the same themes: stablecoins, blockchain remittances, tokenized securities, and digital asset custody.

Naver Financial also agreed in 2025 to acquire Dunamu through an all-stock deal valued at 15.13 trillion won. This transaction is what has reshaped how the broader market thinks about the company’s future.

Beyond Dunamu, Korea Investment & Securities and OKX are reportedly in talks to acquire a 20% stake in rival exchange Coinone for somewhere between 500 and 600 billion won.

What This Signals

South Korea’s largest banks, tech conglomerates, and financial institutions are not waiting for regulators to act before positioning themselves. They are moving now, acquiring stakes in the infrastructure that will matter most once the rules are written.

For Samsung, the Dunamu investment connects three of its financial and technology units to Upbit’s market reach, blockchain capabilities, and the stablecoin and tokenized securities use cases that are still taking shape. The deal does not guarantee any of those futures, but it ensures Samsung has a seat at the table when they arrive.