OKX Ventures and Korea Investment & Securities will each invest ₩80 billion ($53 million) for a 19.6% stake in South Korean crypto exchange Coinone, the companies announced Friday, May 29, 2026, at 6:07 a.m. UTC. The combined ₩160 billion deal is one of the largest recent investments by a global crypto firm into Korea's regulated digital asset sector — and the first time a major Korean traditional brokerage has co-invested alongside an offshore exchange operator of this scale.

The transaction is pending regulatory approval from South Korean authorities.

Deal structure

The investment will be structured as a mix of secondary share purchases from existing shareholders and subscriptions for newly issued shares, according to a joint company statement. Both investors are acquiring identical stakes: 19.6% each, at identical consideration of ₩80 billion per party.

After the transaction closes, Coinone CEO Cha Myunghun will remain the exchange's largest individual shareholder with a 27.8% stake and will retain management control. Com2uS Holdings and its affiliates — the gaming conglomerate that already holds a position in Coinone — will sit at 25%. OKX Ventures and KIS will become joint third-largest shareholders, each at 19.6%.

The deal formalizes discussions that Yonhap News Agency reported on May 15, 2026, when it disclosed that OKX and KIS were considering acquiring roughly 20% stakes in Coinone. The final terms track those reports closely.

Why Coinone

Coinone is pushing into two product areas that have attracted institutional interest across Asia: stablecoins and tokenized securities. Korean regulators have been among the most active in the region in developing frameworks for both asset classes, and Coinone appears to be positioning ahead of that regulatory opening.

OKX Ventures, the investment arm of OKX — one of the world's largest crypto exchanges by spot volume — has historically made minority investments in infrastructure, protocols, and ecosystem projects. This deal is a different kind of entry: a direct equity stake in a licensed national exchange. It gives OKX a regulated foothold in Korea without the operational complexity of building or acquiring an exchange outright.

KIS's participation is the more structurally notable signal. Korea Investment & Securities is one of South Korea's largest brokerages by assets under management and client base. Its decision to co-invest alongside a global crypto exchange into a licensed crypto venue signals that Korean TradFi is no longer treating digital assets as a separate vertical. The co-investment structure — matching stakes, matching consideration — suggests KIS and OKX Ventures coordinated closely on terms rather than arriving independently.

Korea's weight in global crypto

Korea consistently ranks among the world's top five retail crypto markets by daily trading volume. The Korean won is one of the most actively traded fiat currencies in crypto spot markets globally, a dynamic sometimes called the "kimchi premium" — the persistent price premium on Korean exchanges relative to international prices driven by capital flow restrictions and retail demand. Coinone is one of five exchanges licensed under Korea's Financial Information Analysis Institute (FIU) framework, which makes its equity a scarce regulated asset.

For global crypto firms, acquiring a stake in a licensed Korean exchange is difficult precisely because the FIU approval process is long and the regulator has been selective. An equity deal in an existing licensee, rather than a greenfield application, sidesteps that barrier — which is part of what gives Coinone's cap table strategic value beyond its current revenue.

Convergence of TradFi and crypto infrastructure

The KIS co-investment fits a pattern visible elsewhere in Asia: large brokerages using crypto exchange equity as the vehicle through which they enter digital asset distribution. In Japan, SBI Holdings has held stakes in multiple crypto exchanges for years. In Hong Kong, traditional financial institutions participated in the licensing of HashKey and OSL. Korea has been slower on that specific convergence, and this deal is an accelerant.

For Coinone, the KIS relationship opens distribution to a brokerage client base that the exchange could not otherwise reach through its own retail channels. KIS's network of individual investors and institutional accounts represents a natural distribution layer for regulated crypto products — the stablecoin and tokenized securities offerings Coinone is building toward.

What comes next

The transaction is subject to regulatory approval, which in Korea means FIU review of the new shareholders' fitness and the deal's compliance with existing digital asset operator rules. Neither the companies nor the CoinDesk report specify a target approval timeline. Given the regulatory significance of two large shareholders joining a licensed exchange simultaneously, review is likely to be thorough.

Until approval is granted, the cap table remains as-is. OKX Ventures and KIS do not hold their stakes, and neither has governance rights, until the Korean regulator signs off. The companies have not indicated a deadline or a break clause.

What the deal already signals — regardless of approval timing — is that the largest Korean brokerage and the investment arm of one of the world's largest crypto exchanges both concluded that a regulated Korean exchange is worth $53 million each. That is the most concrete valuation signal Coinone has received from the market in years, and the clearest indication yet that Korea's licensed crypto sector is attracting capital at a scale that matches its retail trading weight.