South Korea restarts the review of the CEX acquisition of Gopax, and CEX may return to the South Korean market.

On October 14, TheBlock reported that South Korean authorities have resumed their review of CEX's acquisition of the local trading platform Gopax, a deal that has been on hold for over two years, which may indicate that CEX is looking to return to the South Korean market. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), under the South Korean Financial Services Commission, is currently evaluating the formal report submitted by Gopax regarding the replacement of key executives and is taking a positive stance on this, with changes to CEX-Gopax expected to be approved as early as the end of 2025. Under South Korea's current legal framework, there is no specific qualification review for the major shareholders of crypto assets trading platforms, so this executive change report is essentially seen as a review of the qualifications of CEX's major shareholders. In 2023, CEX intervened to rescue Gopax when approximately $47 million of customer funds were frozen due to the bankruptcy of Genesis Global Capital. After acquiring a 67% stake in Gopax, making it the largest shareholder, CEX submitted the executive change report for the first time. After that, South Korean authorities suspended the approval process, but the recent actions by the FIU seem to be influenced by the resolution of compliance issues in the United States.