Naver Financial, the FinTech arm of South Korea’s tech giant Naver, has reportedly agreed to buy crypto specialist Dunamo in a deal valued at about $10.3 billion.

Dunamu owns and operates Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, which controls most of the country's cryptocurrency trading volume, making it South Korea's largest exchange platform.

The value of the deal makes the merger one of South Korea's largest tech-crypto mergers.

According to Reuters, Naver Financial will complete the acquisition of the crypto firm in an all-share deal, with the FinTech planning to issue 2.54 shares for each share to Dunamo shareholders, with ratios set via discounted cash flow valuations.

Under the agreement, Dunamo will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial.

The Reuters report says that the deal aims to integrate Dunamo's digital assets into its broader financial services ecosystem. The FinTech will implement AI, FinTech and Web3 finance blockchain to build a global digital finance platform, it added.

"Upbit is the largest crypto exchange in South Korea with about 70 per cent market share according to some reports and is hugely profitable," Siya Yang, head of marketing at Hong Kong-based digital assets services firm HashKey Group told the news agency.

"Naver can see synergy in the business as it can divert its own user traffic toward the exchange who provides financial products to mostly the younger generation," Yang added.

In response to ongoing speculation that Dunamu is considering a Nasdaq listing after the merger, signalling ambitions beyond Korea, Dunamu chief executive Choi Soo-Yeon did not confirm such plans.

The chief executive told Reuters that such conditions will only be driven by shareholder value.

Naver shares rose seven per cent after the deal was announced but fell 4.2 per cent on Thursday morning. .

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