Binance has returned to South Korea after nearly two years as the world’s largest crypto exchange purchased a majority stake in its peer GOPAX. The purchase marks the latest in Binance’s recent acquisitions, a strategy it often employs to enter new markets.

Binance Buys a Majority Stake in GOPAX Using Funds from its $1B Recovery Initiative

Binance bought a majority stake in a South Korean crypto exchange GOPAX, which marks the return of the world’s largest crypto exchange to a market it exited in 2021. The acquisition of a controlling stake comes a month after reports revealed that Binance was in the final stages of reentering the South Korean market.

According to Binance’s chief business officer Yibo Ling, Binance acquired a significant equity position in GOPAX, a Seoul-based crypto exchange that halted withdrawals in select products in November. Binance bought the majority stake using the funds from the Industry Recovery Initiative – the company’s $1 billion co-investment project that aims to help distressed companies within the crypto sector in the wake of the FTX collapse in November.

Ling said Binance intends to pour fresh capital into GOPAX to allow for customer withdrawals and interest payments for the exchange’s yield product GoFi. The key aim of the deal “was to support customers and make sure that any customers who want to withdraw their assets have the ability to do so,” he added.

GOPAX owner Streami Inc. is one of the ten major creditors of Genesis Global, the bankrupt crypto lender that was a partner in a yield product offered by GOPAX. In addition, Genesis’s parent company Digital Currency Group is the second-biggest shareholder of the South Korean crypto exchange.

Binance’s Growth Through Acquisitions Continues

Binance’s comeback in South Korea comes less than two years after the crypto exchange giant left the market due to low usage and volume. However, the company began plotting its return to the Asian markets last year when it acquired the Japanese Sakura Exchange BitCoin.

The South Korean market faced numerous headwinds last year amid crypto winter and the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA, which sent shockwaves through the industry. Binance boss Changpeng Zhao said he hopes buying a majority stake in GOPAX “will further rebuild the Korean crypto and blockchain industry.”

The purchase underscores Binance’s aggressive strategy to achieve rapid growth and enter new markets through acquisitions. Binance bought the Indonesian crypto bourse Tokocrypto in December to foray into the Southeast Asian market.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist