Dunamu, which operates Upbit, the No. 1 virtual asset exchange in Korea, saw operating profit fall last year due to a slowdown in transactions, but the average annual salary for employees jumped sharply, surpassing 200 million won. Chair Song Chi-hyung received a salary close to 6 billion won, an amount similar to the combined salaries of the chairs of the four major financial holding companies.
According to Dunamu's business report filed on the Financial Supervisory Service's electronic disclosure system on the 31st, Chair Song received 5,987,560,000 won in compensation last year. Of that, salary was about 3.1 billion won and bonus was about 2.9 billion won. The previous year, Song received a total of 6,202,400,000 won, including 2.9 billion won in salary and 3.3 billion won in bonus.
Former CEO Lee Sir-goo received 3,690,922,000 won in compensation. Salary and bonus were about 1.3 billion won, and retirement income was about 2.3 billion won. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Kim Dong-min received 4,227,020,000 won, including about 3.8 billion won in bonuses, while Vice Chair Kim Hyeong-nyeon and Deputy Minister Lee Han-young received 2,158,850,000 won and 1,606,720,000 won, respectively.
The average annual salary of Dunamu's 696 employees last year was 253,960,000 won. It increased about 33% from 190,780,000 won in 2024, surpassing an average of 200 million won for the first time. That is about double last year's average annual salary at the four major commercial banks (122,750,000 won).
Dunamu's performance fell sharply last year. Net profit was 708.9 billion won, down 27.9% from a year earlier, and operating profit fell 26.7% to 869.3 billion won. Most of the revenue comes from virtual asset transaction fees, and as transactions decreased, fee income also declined.
The merger between Dunamu and Naver Financial is being delayed. The previous day, Naver said it had pushed back by about three months the schedule for a comprehensive stock exchange between its subsidiary Naver Financial and Dunamu. The timeline was partially adjusted to reflect the approval process and updates to related laws and regulations, and provisions limiting exchange equity in the Digital Asset Basic Act under discussion in the National Assembly are expected to be a variable.
The government is pushing to limit the equity of major shareholders in virtual asset exchanges to 15%–20%. Naver Financial and Dunamu are pursuing a merger through a comprehensive stock exchange, and once completed, Chair Song would secure about 19.5% of the merged entity's equity.
If the 13.11% equity of Vice Chair Kim Hyeong-nyeon, Dunamu's co-founder, is aggregated as a related-party equity and even Naver's side equity (17%) is counted as a major shareholder equity, the merger itself could become difficult.