During the spring of this year, rumors that the Korean gaming company Nexon was acquiring Bitstamp started making the rounds. The rumors suggested that Nexon would be paying around $500 million to acquire one of the longest-running exchanges of the crypto industry. Public filings released in late May state that there has indeed been a deal between Nexon and the Luxembourg-based virtual currency exchange.

Prior to these rumors, Nexon acquired a majority stake in Korbit, a crypto exchange for around $80 million in September last year. According to the rumors, Nexon was in talks with the UK-based exchange company and is planning to acquire it for $350 million. However, at that time the CEO of Nexon Korea, Lee Jungheon stated, “Nexon Korea does not have anything to do with a Bitstamp acquisition.”

Corporate disclosure reveals a deal between Nexon and Bitstamp

According to reports, the Nexon Group holding company NXC submitted a corporate disclosure indicating that a deal indeed took place between the gaming company and Bitstamp. Founder of NXC, Kim Jung-Ju, and his family owns 98.28% of the group’s parent company. The report says the NXC has a 100% ownership in an investment and consulting company from Belgium called NXMH B.V.B.A. This company created another Belgian company, Bitstamp Holdings N.V. in February 2018.

As per the latest reports, Bitstamp Holdings N.V. acquired 100% stake of Bitstamp Japan Co. on April 25, 2018.

Documents fail to clear acquisition doubts

Even though the documents have established a link between Bitstamp and Nexon, they do not clarify whether the gaming company did acquire Bitstamp because there is not much information available about Bitstamp Japan Co. Ltd. Run by Bitstamp Limited, the exchange has a head office in UK and branch offices in New York and Luxembourg.

According to a Nexon representative, the exchange is not operated by Bitstamp Holdings. The representative did disclose any further information, however, hinted that the filing of NXC was inaccurate.