The chief business officer of Binance, Yibo Ling, stated that the company had acquired a significant stake in Gopax, which stopped allowing withdrawals from specific goods in November. The industry recovery initiative, a co-investment project to BNB, is leading and has pledged $1 billion to provide the financing for the purchase. The companies are still keeping the amounts hush-hush.
CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has raised hopes that Binance’s return to the East Asian country will “rebuild the Korean crypto and blockchain industry.” Both South Korea and Binance went through a turbulent 2022. The country was in the spotlight when the earth collapse sent shockwaves through the entire cryptocurrency industry.
The project’s algorithmic stablecoin – UST – and its native currency – LUNA – have dropped to virtually zero, causing severe losses for investors. Earth’s co-founder – Do Kwon (considered by some to be the main culprit behind the catastrophe) – was reluctant to cooperate with authorities and regulators and left his homeland. Although Interpol has issued a red notice on the 31-year-old, his whereabouts remain a mystery. recent sources indicated that he could be hiding in Serbia.
Last November, the GOPAX exchange got into some financial trouble after bankrupt crypto lending firm Genesis refused to pay GOFI users. GOFI is a yield-generating product offered by GOPAX alongside collaboration with Genesis. The South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange eventually suspended the withdrawal of principal and interest payments in the Defi service, GOFI.
Reportedly, the suspension was a result of Genesis Global Capital, which is the partner, shutting acquisitions and initiating new loans at its lending arm Genesis Global Trading. Genesis disclosed the GOFI withdrawal suspension citing abnormal withdrawal requests, just a week after the FTX crash.
GOPAX’s parent company Streami Inc. is part of the top 10 largest known creditors of the bankrupt crypto lender firm Genesis Global. According to a blog post by GOPAX, Genesis’s parent company, Digital Currency Group, is the second largest shareholder of GOPAX.
While the South Korean exchange is still very well in trouble, Binance chose to acquire it. Yibo Ling, the chief business officer at Binance, revealed that the company had taken a meaningful equity position in GOPAX. Notably, Binance purchased a stake in GOPAX from the Industry Recovery Initiative, which it founded late last year following the FTX collapse.
The company plans to infuse funds into GOPAX to allow customers to withdraw their interest payments in GOPAX’s yield product GoFi. Ling noted, “The fundamental thrust of this deal was to support customers and make sure that any customers who want to withdraw their assets have the ability to do so.”
