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Disney has reportedly been offered a controlling stake in the parent company of South Korean video game publisher Nexon, which specializes in online games for PC and mobile. Nexon is the biggest game developer in South Korea and is the world’s second-largest online games market. Its parent company, NXC, owns two major cryptocurrency exchanges: Bitstamp, based in Luxembourg, and Korbit, based in South Korea.
Founded in 2011, Bitstamp is the world’s longest-running Bitcoin exchange.
Billionaire and NXC chairman, Jung-ju Kim, is selling the 98.64% stake that he and his wife hold in NXC, which owns 47.02% of Nexon. He has been trying to sell his stake since January with final bids set to take place on May 15.
According to a report by Korea Herald, Jung-ju met with a representative at Disney, offering to sell his stake in NXC to the entertainment giant.
Says Jung-Ju,
“What I envy the most about Disney is that they do not force money out of kids … (consumers) gladly pay Disney. Nexon has a long way to go. Some people hate Nexon to death.”
Last year NXC subsidiary NXMH, a Belgian-based investment group, acquired Bitstamp, one of the largest Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges by volume in the European Union. It supports major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and XRP, and fiat-crypto pairs in US dollars and euro.
Bitstamp currently has a 24-hour trading volume of $56.7 billion, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap, with BTC/USD comprising 57.12% of its daily volume, valued at $32.4 billion. Bitstamp is among crypto researh firm Messari’s “Real 10 Volumes”, one of 10 select crypto exchanges, along with Binance, Coinbase Pro, Kraken and Gemini, that are used to track what it considers to be legitimate volumes.
NXC also owns a majority stake in rival crypto exchange Korbit through its subsidiary. Nexon acquired 65% of Korbit in 2017 – the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea and the first Bitcoin exchange in the country. Korbit has a daily trading volume of roughly $9.8 billion, at time of writing.
Reuters reports that NXC is also fielding bids from Chinese gaming giant Tencent, South Korean internet giant Kakao and a few private equity firms including Bain Capital, MBK Partners and KKR.
Nexon was founded in 1994 and specializes in online games, and is home to some of the world’s most popular titles including MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter Online.
Disney reported $59.4 billion in revenue in 2018 and acquired 21st Century Fox last month.
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