Bithumb Meta Rebrands to Bithumb Partners for Investors

Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges, has transformed its defunct subsidiary Bithumb Meta into Bithumb Partners.

As reported by BizWatch today, the rebranding is being interpreted as a major strategic change. Along with the name, the focus turned to investment activities and a new entity was created within Bithumb.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Bithumb rebranded and injected another KRW 1 billion or USD 6,80,099, bringing the total capital of Bithumb’s 100%-owned subsidiary to approximately $2 million. In 2023, Bithumb Meta’s previous investors such as LG CNS, CJ OliveNetworks, and SK Square officially left due to the subsidiary’s failure to meet their expectations from NFT and metaverse projects.

Bithumb Partners will now be officially managed by an outsider named Im Tae-seong. Accordingly, management at Bithumb will occupy all key positions, as will internal directory and audits. The shakeup also ended with the departure and disbandment of Bithumb Meta’s founding management team.

Therefore, Bithumb Partners will be a short-term investment vehicle for themed stock and bond deals using Bithumb internal funds. This is in contrast to Bithumb Investment, which deals mostly in external investments. Additionally, Bithumb has historically invested in convertible bonds in KOSDAQ-listed companies Iwin, Barunson and T&R Biofab. For now, Bithumb Partners is looking to continue overseeing existing short-term fixed investments, as well as potentially evolving into a full-fledged strategic or financial investor.

There was a consensus among industry experts regarding Bithumb Partners, with the intended ‘spin-off’ Bithumb reported in the first half of 2023. He had a vision of establishing an investment company used for holding operations to manage investments and real estate. hire. However, Bithumb Partners is the brainchild of the previous vision but undertakes a more streamlined process than the initial plan.

“We restructured Bithumb Meta into Bithumb Partners to streamline operations and focus on managing short-term financial investments as well as assets such as stocks and bonds. Creating a new entity from scratch and liquidating the old one would be time-consuming.”

Spokesperson for Bithumb.

Bithumb’s IPO position

This development coincides with Bithumb’s announcement that it plans to conduct an IPO in 2025. Creating an investment-focused subsidiary would likely fall within the scope of a broader optimization effort of its corporate structure and financial affairs leading up to the planned IPO.

Some have said that your company reorganized Bithumb Meta into Bithumb Partners to more easily streamline operations and focus on asset management related to stocks, bonds, and short-term financial investments. It takes a very long time to create a new entity from scratch and liquidate the old one.

This is in line with Bithumb’s proposal and announcement that it will pursue an initial public offering in the United States by 2025. Creating an investment-focused subsidiary represents a major effort to streamline corporate structure and operations before an IPO.