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| Crypto exchange Upbit's logo |
By Anna J. Park
As cryptocurrencies continue to enjoy a bullish run lately, investors are eyeing Dunamu, the operator of Korea's largest crypto exchange Upbit, and its expected listing in the future.
According to the investment banking industry, the blockchain-based fintech company has recently been said to be holding meetings with global investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to examine the firm's possible IPO options, including a listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). While the local investment banking industry expects the firm to go public on the U.S. stock market as early as 2022, a Dunamu official simply said that nothing has been decided as of now.
"The company is currently reviewing various options, but nothing about the possible IPO has been decided as of now," the official told The Korea Times. "As the company is still fast growing, we're closely examining the firm's next step with every door open."
Despite the official's refusal to confirm any specific timeline or plans about its public offering in the near future, market insiders and investors still expect that the blockchain fintech firm will pursue going public in the next couple of years, based on the solid growth in its crypto exchange unit.
During the first two months of this year, Dunamu reaped some 290 billion won ($258 million) in revenue, with 260 billion won in operating profit, which far exceeds the company's entire revenue and net profit for all of last year. In 2020, Dumanu recorded an annual revenue of 176.7 billion won and a net profit of 46.4 billion won. Given that the company grossed 290 billion won for two months' revenues in January and February this year, the firm is estimated to garner a whopping 1.69 trillion won in its annual operating profit for this year.
Dunamu's annual revenue and profits have been increasing exponentially, as it saw a huge surge in both trading volume and the number of Upbit customers, as well as its brokerage service platform Stockplus and Stockplus Unlisted, its mobile-based brokerage platform for trading unlisted private companies.
Currently, Dunamu's corporate value is estimated to be around 10 trillion won. Corporate value is calculated based on the firm's expected first-quarter results, multiplied by 20 times the PER (price-to-earnings) ratio.
Some say the valuation could be much higher, even to a level nearing around 100 trillion won or $100 billion, similar to the valuation of Coinbase, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the U.S., which faces an upcoming IPO on the Nasdaq on April 14. The reason behind the valuation is that Upbit already significantly surpasses Coinbase in daily transactional amount.
During the last 24 hours of trading volume, as of 2:50 p.m. Korea time on Tuesday, Upbit's trading volume during the past 24 hours stood at $20,294,123,005, which is more than seven times that of Coinbase at $2,653,132,664.
Based on active trading performances, market insiders say Dunamu's Upbit alone could have a similar market valuation to its global competitor Coinbase, as the Korea-headquartered digital asset exchange shows impressive increases in its annual revenues, profits and daily transactional volumes.
Founded in 2017, Dunamu also owns Lambda256, a blockchain technology subsidiary, aside from its crypto exchange and stock brokerage platforms. The Korean tech giant Kakao owns 8.1 percent of Dunamu shares as of the end of last year.
