Dunamu Q1 profit drops 78% but $669M Hana Financial deal proceeds anyway

Dunamu recently disclosed a 78% year-on-year decline in operating profit for the first quarter of 2026. The company recorded 88 billion won ($60 million) due to reduced trading volumes affecting fee revenue. 

Even with the drop in revenue, Hana Financial Group confirmed a 1 trillion won ($669 million) acquisition of a 6.55% stake in Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit. 

Why is Dunamu’s profit down in Q1 2026? 

Dunamu recently revealed that it had a consolidated revenue of 234.6 billion won ($156 million) for Q1, down 55% from 516.2 billion won ($345 million) a year earlier. The company’s net profit fell by the same 78% margin to 69.5 billion won ($46 million), down from 320.5 billion won ($214 million) in Q1 2025.

So far, the decline has been attributed to a “decrease in virtual asset market trading volume.” About 97% of Dunamu’s revenue is derived from transaction fees, making any reduction in trading activity an issue for the company.

Customers are also depositing less money. Dunamu held approximately 5.199 trillion won ($3.4 billion) in client funds at the end of Q1, an 11% decline from December 2025.

The South Korean market is migrating from digital assets to local stocks, especially those linked with the AI boom. This trend can be observed in the KOSPI 200 index, which has surged over 200% in the last year. 

At the close of 2025, Dunamu reported 13.17 trillion won ($8.81 billion) in total assets and generated 709 billion won in net profit alongside 1.56 trillion won in full-year revenue. Dunamu has been required to file quarterly and annual reports with regulators since 2022, when it crossed the threshold of 500 shareholders per security class.

Hana Financial invests in Dunamu despite revenue decline 

Despite the drop in the exchange’s profits, Hana Bank has confirmed that it will purchase a 6.55% stake from Kakao Investment, making it Dunamu’s fourth-largest shareholder. The partnership involves co-developing digital financial products, including stablecoin initiatives, and extending their existing cooperation beyond providing fiat banking rails for Upbit users.

The declining revenue is not the only pressure facing Upbit and other South Korean crypto exchanges. Cryptopolitan has previously reported on regulatory pressure facing Korean exchange operators. South Korean authorities have been pushing platforms to dilute major shareholder concentrations and improve corporate accountability. 

The Financial Services Commission mandated earlier this year that major exchanges reconcile internal ledgers with actual crypto holdings every five minutes and submit to inspections every six months rather than annually, following operational failures at multiple institutions.

The Hana Financial stake acquisition still requires standard regulatory approvals. Separately, Naver Financial disclosed plans in November 2025 to acquire Dunamu as a wholly owned subsidiary through a share swap, though the status of that arrangement alongside the Hana deal remains unclear. 

Korean regulators are also preparing a 22% crypto gains tax effective January 2027, which could further reduce retail trading volumes that exchanges like Upbit depend on.

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