Hana Bank acquired a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the company behind South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, for approximately 1.003 trillion won on May 14. The transaction, confirmed through a regulatory filing with South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service, values the purchase at roughly $670 million. Those 2,284,000 shares are being bought directly from Kakao Investment Co., Ltd., an affiliate of tech conglomerate Kakao, which will retain approximately 4% after the sale closes on June 15.
The deal makes Hana Bank the fourth-largest shareholder in Dunamu. Kakao Investment initially put 35.5 billion won into Dunamu after the exchange’s 2012 founding. That investment grew more than 300-fold, per Korea Herald reporting on the transaction.
What Hana Is Actually Buying
The equity stake is the visible part. The infrastructure play underneath it is the story.
Hana Financial Group and Dunamu have been building a blockchain-based foreign currency remittance system since late last year, using Dunamu’s proprietary Layer 2 blockchain Giwa Chain. A proof of concept completed in February replaced traditional SWIFT-based messaging between Hana Bank’s domestic and overseas branches with on-chain settlement. According to Seoul Economic Daily reporting on that trial, counter-based fees for a $1,000 international transfer, currently around 18,000 won including fixed and variable charges, could fall to 1,000 won or even lower at commercial scale. Settlement times expected to drop from two to three days to near real-time.
Technical verification confirmed the approach works. In April, Hana Financial, Dunamu, and POSCO International signed a three-way MOU for live commercial testing. POSCO International, which processes large volumes of cross-border trade payments monthly, is running Giwa Chain through actual supply-chain settlement use cases. Lee Kye-in, president of POSCO International, described the agreement as establishing “a mid-to-long-term partnership base with leading domestic companies in the fields of digital finance and digital assets.”
The deal signals something specific to Upbit retail users tracking Korea’s stablecoin infrastructure push. The same blockchain rails now securing Hana’s equity position are the rails being built for won-denominated stablecoin issuance, payments, distribution, and settlement. That layer doesn’t exist yet in a commercial form, but the February PoC and this $670 million commitment put Hana at the centre of whoever builds it first.
Giwa Chain’s Zero-Knowledge Core
The technical detail most outlets have skipped.
Dunamu’s BOJAGI protocol, built on zero-knowledge proof technology, sits inside every Giwa Chain transaction. It lets network participants verify transaction validity without exposing sender or recipient financial data. That matters specifically for the cross-border remittance use case, where AML and KYC compliance requirements across different jurisdictions create friction that legacy SWIFT-based systems absorb through intermediary layers.
During the February PoC, both companies confirmed BOJAGI passed internal AML and KYC controls. That result was presented as the technical gate for moving from proof of concept to commercial pilot.
Kakao Exits, Hana Anchors
Kakao Investment’s disposal of its 6.55% holding at 1.003 trillion won secured an exit at multiples of its original entry price. The firm noted in its regulatory filing the disposal was for “securing funds for future investments.” Kakao’s remaining 4.03% stake stays intact after the deal.
Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo called the purchase “a strategic decision to accelerate digital asset-based financial innovation,” adding the group plans to help shape Korea’s blockchain ecosystem and move the country’s digital asset industry toward the global front. Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok said in December 2025 that once stablecoins become commercialised, “the blockchain infrastructure that supports them will become mainstream,” pushing financial services from payments through to capital markets toward Web3-based models.
The deal is the largest single equity investment by a South Korean commercial bank in a digital asset company on record.
Korea’s Financial Services Commission has been pushing to reduce controlling shareholder stakes at crypto exchanges under proposed fitness review regulations. A major bank holding 6.55% alongside the Naver Financial merger process pending shareholder votes on May 22 changes the ownership optics for Dunamu at exactly the moment regulators are scrutinizing exchange governance.
Whether the Giwa Chain remittance system moves to full commercial launch before year-end will depend partly on those same regulatory approvals and partly on how quickly POSCO International’s trade settlement pilot generates usable data. The technical work is done. The equity is committed. The stablecoin framework is still unresolved.
