Hana Financial Group Acquires 6.55% Stake in Upbit Operator Dunamu... Institutional Finance Enters Virtual Asset Market in Earnest

On May 15, 2026, Hana Financial Group announced that it would acquire a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, South Korea's largest virtual asset exchange. The transaction is valued at approximately $668 million (about 1 trillion KRW), marking the largest direct investment ever made by a traditional Korean commercial bank into the virtual asset industry.

This investment is a strategic decision to prepare for the institutionalization of the digital asset market and to preoccupy future financial infrastructure, and it will serve as an opportunity to accelerate the group's digital transformation.

The board of directors of Hana Financial Group voted unanimously in favor of the stake acquisition on May 14, 2026. The scheduled date for the stock acquisition has been confirmed as June 15, 2026. This investment was recorded as a large-scale capital injection, representing 2.78% of Hana Bank's equity capital of approximately 36 trillion KRW.

Kakao's Exit and Shareholder Restructuring

Through this transaction, Hana Financial Group will secure its position as the fourth-largest shareholder of Dunamu. A particularly noteworthy point is that Hana Financial, a traditional financial firm, has replaced the tech giant Kakao, which had been a major shareholder of Dunamu for the past 13 years but has now sold its stake and stepped down.

• Hana Financial Group: Becomes the 4th largest shareholder with a 6.55% stake
• Kakao: Excluded from Dunamu's major shareholder list after 13 years
• Chairman Song Chi-hyung: Maintains status as the largest shareholder with a current stake of approximately 25.52%

Dunamu's corporate value has fluctuated according to market conditions. It was valued at approximately $17 billion at the time of HYBE's investment during the virtual asset boom in 2021, but was adjusted to around $10 billion when Naver pursued an acquisition at the end of 2025.

Hana Financial's acquisition price is the result of valuing Dunamu's total corporate value at approximately $10.2 billion. This suggests that the market has begun to recognize the revenue model of virtual asset exchanges as stable financial infrastructure, showing that the excessive bubbles of the past have cleared and the valuation has entered a reasonable range.

Chairman Ham Young-joo's Digital Asset Strategy

Since taking office, Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo has emphasized digital assets and blockchain technology as the group's core growth drivers. Hana Financial is already pursuing practical technological convergence beyond simple investment, such as pilot-operating blockchain-based payment services in cooperation with POSCO and Dunamu.

According to financial industry sources, Hana Financial is expected to cooperate closely with Dunamu in various new business areas, such as virtual asset custody, Security Token Offering (STO) issuance, and blockchain-based overseas remittances, through this stake acquisition. This is a move to accelerate the digital transformation of existing banking operations.

Regulatory Environment and Signal of Institutional Integration

The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of South Korea has been continuously strengthening regulatory guidelines for virtual asset service providers since the implementation of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. Despite some delays in the enactment of the Basic Act on Digital Assets, the entry of large financial groups is expected to be a decisive factor in increasing market transparency and reliability.

Experts believe that Hana Financial's move will serve as a strong stimulus for other commercial banks. Once the transaction is finalized in mid-June 2026, the boundary between virtual assets and traditional finance in the domestic financial market is expected to blur further, and the influence of institutional finance on the virtual asset market will expand significantly.