Wemix, which first attempted a Play to Earn (P2E) ecosystem where users earn money by playing games, is a virtual asset issued by the major Korean game company Wemade. Wemix once drew attention as it was listed on all five major Korean virtual asset exchanges (Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, GOPAX), with high rankings in trading volume and market capitalization, but it vanished from the domestic market after leaving a stain of moral hazard by the issuer and two rounds of delisting. It is currently tradable on foreign exchanges such as Bybit.
According to the white paper, Wemix was developed with the goal of connecting the P2E game ecosystem into one. The idea is to support users of P2E games developed in the Wemix ecosystem so they can exchange the in-game assets they earn for Wemix and cash out. This strategy was positively received by the market, and the price of Wemix once surged from below 1,000 won to as high as 28,000 won.
However, it came to light that Wemade's management sold Wemix worth hundreds of billions of won without prior notice, pushing the price down to the 6,000-won range. Amid fierce criticism from investors and controversy over management's moral hazard, Jang Hyun-guk, then CEO of Wemade (now CEO of Nexxus), said at a press conference that there would be no further sales.
Contrary to that promise, Wemade was found to have continued liquidity efforts, including directly selling Wemix on exchanges. Prosecutors indicted Wemade and former CEO Jang on charges of violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act for unfair trading practices, but the verdict was not guilty. The reason was that it was before the Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect, so there were no relevant laws to impose penalties.
In October the following year, four major exchanges except GOPAX designated Wemix as an "investment caution item." The reason was that the circulating supply in the actual market was 30% higher than the disclosed circulating supply. The Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) gave an opportunity to explain the false disclosure, but the Wemix Foundation ultimately failed to do so, and it was delisted in Dec. 2022.
Just two months after the delisting, in Feb. 2023, starting with Coinone, Korbit and Bithumb relisted Wemix. As domestic virtual asset exchanges except Upbit relisted Wemix, criticism arose that DAXA's guidelines were effectively meaningless.
In early 2022, controversy erupted when it became known that former Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Nam-kuk (now Spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea) held and conducted transactions worth 8.7 billion won in Wemix, which also served as a trigger to expedite the enactment of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act.
Wemix also left the stigma of being the first case to be delisted again after being relisted in the first half of last year. On Mar. 4 last year, the Wemix Foundation announced on its website that "due to a malicious external attack on the 'Play Bridge Vault,' approximately 9 billion won (8,654,860 coins) worth of Wemix coins were stolen." Play Bridge Vault is a dedicated trading platform for Wemix. The hacking occurred on Feb. 28, but the notice came three days later.
DAXA again designated Wemix as an investment caution item for belatedly announcing news of the virtual asset wallet hack. Accepting the court's dismissal of its injunction request to suspend the delisting effect, Wemix was delisted from all domestic exchanges on June 2 last year. Under DAXA's guidelines, a virtual asset can apply for relisting on domestic exchanges one year after the delisting date. Wemix will reach one year since delisting in May.
Wemade plans to further discover popular games to increase the value of Wemix. A total of 10 P2E games have been disclosed in the Wemix ecosystem so far. Concurrent users of the popular games "Mir 4" and "Legend of Ymir" reach 150,000 and 100,000, respectively.
A Wemade official said, "Wemix is a utility coin with real use cases. We are working to launch popular games on the Wemix ecosystem in the global market and make them successful."