[비즈한국] Lee Jun-haeng, the founder of the Korean Won-based virtual asset exchange Gopax (operated by Streami), has demanded that the exchange's major shareholder, Binance, repay the losses from the 'GoFi incident.' Mr. Lee and Binance are currently locked in a legal dispute. After being accused of breach of trust and embezzlement, Mr. Lee was recently cleared of charges, and he has since countersued a former Gopax CEO and Binance officials for defamation and false accusation. Binance recently issued a message stating it would resolve the GoFi situation within this year; attention is focused on whether it will repay the losses, which amount to over 100 billion won, and complete its acquisition of Gopax.
On the 11th, Mr. Lee stated on his personal social media, "Three years ago, I stepped down as CEO to resolve the GoFi issue. However, Binance has delayed repayment until now, while continuing to apply pressure through unreasonable lawsuits and making unfair attempts to evade its repayment obligations." He added, "Whether it involves adjusting the major shareholder's stake or a capital increase, these are matters to be discussed only after the GoFi repayment is fulfilled. Disclose the concrete implementation plan and repay immediately."
Mr. Lee argued that Binance's stance, as cited in the media regarding GoFi repayments, is false. He refuted Binance's claims point by point, asserting that: under the stock purchase agreement, there is an obligation to repay the full amount of GoFi losses; holding assets for repayment is unrelated to the rise in coin prices; and that in the first round of repayment, virtual assets, not fiat currency, were transferred directly to wallets.
The 'GoFi incident' refers to the event in November 2022 when massive payment defaults occurred in GoFi, a virtual asset deposit service operated by Gopax. At the time, Gopax entrusted the operation of assets deposited by customers into GoFi to Genesis Global Capital. Genesis stored these assets on the global virtual asset exchange FTX, and when FTX went bankrupt, the funds became unrecoverable. Although Binance partially repaid some funds after acquiring Streami, about 37% remains, and the scale of the damage has grown to the 100-billion-won range depending on coin market prices.
The legal dispute between Binance and Mr. Lee arose over the share sale contract. When the GoFi incident occurred, Mr. Lee resigned from his CEO position in February 2023 to secure funds for repayment and signed a contract in June of that year to sell his stake to Binance. Binance secured a 67.45% stake in Streami but failed to receive approval from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) until October 2025, when it finally completed the change of major shareholder filing, marking its first step into the Korean market.
In the Streami share sale contract, Binance and Mr. Lee included a condition that if Genesis bonds were recovered or sold, the proceeds would go to Mr. Lee, the share seller. The contract stipulated that Mr. Lee would sell his stake at a 41.5% discount in exchange for receiving future proceeds from the bond sale.
Subsequently, former Gopax CEO Cho Young-joong sued Mr. Lee in April 2025 for breach of trust under the Capital Markets Act and the Act on the Aggravated Punishment, etc. of Specific Economic Crimes, claiming that the discounted sale caused losses to the company. He also accused Mr. Lee of embezzling 60 company-owned Bitcoins in 2021. However, after the police decided not to send the cases to the prosecution in November 2025 and January 2026, respectively, Mr. Lee was cleared of the charges.
According to the police non-prosecution decision on the breach of trust case disclosed by Mr. Lee, the police judged that because Mr. Lee had already resigned as CEO at the time, the charge of breach of trust could not be established, and it was difficult to conclude that he had sold the bonds arbitrarily or caused losses to Streami during the contract process. Since then, Mr. Lee has filed countersuits against Streami and Binance for false accusation and defamation (dissemination of false information). Mr. Lee and Binance are also engaged in an international dispute via the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board over the acquisition price.
Neither Binance nor Gopax have released official statements regarding Mr. Lee's claims. However, both sides stated that it is not true that they have been delaying the repayment of GoFi damages. Since last year, Binance has expressed its will to enter the Korean market and repay GoFi losses through the media. Early this year, SB Ceker, Binance’s Head of Asia-Pacific, mentioned in a media interview, "We will resolve the GoFi repayment issue within 2026," adding, "Once repayment is complete, we will introduce Binance's global standard technology and security systems to Gopax."
Gopax also disclosed its GoFi deposit assets at the end of January to demonstrate its fund status. Gopax explained, "GoFi deposit assets are stored in a third-party custody structure and are managed separately from the company's operational funds," adding, "They are entrusted and managed through a third-party company with Binance as the entrusting entity." The virtual assets in this wallet consist of 11 types, including approximately 775 Bitcoins, 5,766 Ethereums, and 706,184 USDC, which is known to be of similar value to the remaining GoFi repayment amount.
Meanwhile, Gopax, one of the five domestic Won-based virtual asset exchanges, has suffered from financial difficulties since the GoFi incident. Although Binance's acquisition opened the path to resolving the GoFi incident and repaying debts, the process has faced headwinds for over three years, ranging from major shareholder approval to the actual repayment of GoFi losses.
However, recent reports suggest the ruling party is planning to include a provision in the second phase of virtual asset legislation that limits a virtual asset exchange's major shareholder stake to 15-20%. In this case, Binance would have to sell nearly 50% of its Gopax stake. Concerns are rising as it is already difficult to find a new owner—attempts to sell the Gopax stake to Megazone previously fell through—and the introduction of stake-limitation regulations while the acquisition contract is not yet fully concluded could have a negative impact.