South Korean internet giant Naver has recently made a big move, spending a whopping $10.3 billion to acquire Dunamu. Who is Dunamu? It is the parent company of Upbit, the largest crypto assets exchange in South Korea.

The way this transaction works is quite interesting: Naver's financial subsidiary, Naver Financial, will issue new shares, and for every 1 share held by Dunamu's shareholders, they can exchange it for 2.54 shares of Naver Financial. After completion, Upbit will become part of the Naver system, but both parties will maintain independent operations, which can be described as "formal merger, substantial independence."

Why is this matter worth paying attention to? Just look at the assets of both parties and you'll understand. Naver controls South Korea's largest payment platform, Naver Pay, with a user base exceeding 30 million, which is almost half of South Korea's population. As for Upbit, it firmly sits at the top of South Korea's Crypto Assets exchange, with an average daily trading volume easily reaching tens of billions. When the two merge, traditional payment and Crypto Assets trading seamlessly connect—users transition from fiat to digital assets with almost no need for switching.

More importantly, they also plan to launch a Korean won stablecoin. Imagine this: while South Koreans are using Naver Pay for their daily purchases, they can easily allocate Crypto Assets and even conduct cross-border transfers using the stablecoin. Once this ecological closed loop is operational, the boundaries between traditional finance and digital finance may become completely blurred.

Of course, such a large-scale integration will definitely not escape the regulatory spotlight. The Financial Supervisory Service and the Fair Trade Commission in South Korea will both intervene to review it, as bundling payment giants and crypto asset trading platforms together involves careful consideration of compliance risks and market monopoly issues. However, if it is ultimately approved, this could become a landmark event in the digital finance sector in Asia.