SK Square, a new investment firm under one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, SK Group, chose cryptocurrency exchange Korbit as one of its first investments. The two companies aim to upgrade the trading platform’s environment in order to deliver more accurate and trustworthy investment information to users, and plan future businesses in the metaverse and NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
Fast facts
- SK Square became the second-largest shareholder in Korbit today by investing 90 billion Korean won (US$ 75.4 million). SK Square now owns 35% of Korbit, one of South Korea’s four major cryptocurrency exchanges. Korbit’s largest shareholder is game developer Nexon’s holding company NXC, which owns 48%.
- Oh Se-jin, CEO of Korbit, said: “With this investment, we will maximize customer value by improving the quality of services at Korbit exchange, as well as develop new businesses such as in NFTs and the metaverse through synergy with SK Square.”
- Meanwhile, local media reports express anticipation for the possible integration of Korbit’s Korbit Town metaverse and Ifland, SK Square’s brother company SK Telecom’s own metaverse. Korbit plans to introduce upgraded metaverse services through the service linkage between Korbit Town and SK Square’s various platform and contents-related subsidiaries, including the Ifland metaverse.
- SK Square also announced it will put a 40% stake in On Mind Inc., a subsidiary of Neptune Company under Kakao Games. On Mind is equipped with self-developed technologies in creating three-dimensional digital humans and real-time graphics rendering. Recently it created a virtual influencer by the name of Sua.
- SK Square is a new investment firm of SK Group that was established through a spinoff from SK Telecom. While SK Telecom remains focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and digital infrastructure businesses, SK Square will invest in the semiconductor and information and communication technologies (ICT) fields.
- Korbit is one of Korea’s only four out of a total of around 30 cryptocurrency exchanges that are fully compliant with the country’s latest crypto regulations. Subsequently, the four are the only ones licensed to operate Korean won-to-crypto services.
