Photo = Cyworld
Cyworld, which managed to find a new owner, came up with a plan to “issuing virtual currency and listing it on the exchange.” Some people in the industry are pointing out, “Isn’t Cyworld, which has a high reputation but disappears, is eventually used for the’coin business’?”
According to the industry on the 3rd, Cyworld Z, a joint venture of five companies including Sky ENM, acquired the right to operate the service from Cyworld CEO Je-wan Jeon at the end of last month. Cyworld Z announced that it will normalize Cyworld as early as next month and start a pilot service of’Cyworld Mobile 3.0′ in the first half of the year.
There are two things that stand out in this M&A deal. One is that the publicly disclosed acquisition amount is only 1 billion won. It is reported that the former CEO received 1 billion won, which is the amount of wages he has paid to employees, from Cyworld Z and turned over the company. This means that the present value of Cyworld, which was once used by 32 million people, is actually close to’zero’. The former CEO, who is also the founder of Freechal, was handed over to trial for overdue payment of 470 million won worth of wages and retirement allowances from 27 employees, and was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison at the first trial in November last year. In addition, he has been charged with an additional charge of overdue wages worth 600 million won.
The other is that Cyworld came out with a virtual currency business. Cyworld Z CEO Oh Jong-won said, “It can be seen as an evolved’Acorn’ (Cyworld’s cyber money) model.” I will release it,” he said. He explained that the white paper containing the business plan of the virtual currency is outlined. However, exchanges do not check whether a particular coin is listed.
The cryptocurrency business that utilized Cyworld’s brand recognition had already been promoted and failed as a former CEO. In 2019, Cyworld launched a cryptocurrency’Kling’ and listed it on the exchange, saying that it will combine blockchain technology with Acorn.
Kling’s logic was similar to that of a number of startups in the ICO. When a Cyworld user writes or clicks’Like’, points are paid, and these points can be exchanged for clinks to buy and sell on the exchange.
Thanks to the anticipation of Cyworld’s resurgence, Kling raised 400 million won from its primary sales. However, as the company fell into business difficulties again, the Clink price plummeted more than 90% in five months and dropped to 0.70 won. Some exchanges that used to trade Clink designated or delisted this cryptocurrency as an investment oil.
Cyworld is known to have more than 10 billion photos and 100 million videos stored. Cyworld Z is reported to have left the development of mobile services to an outsourcing company. The company does not disclose the rest of the shareholders except Sky ENM.
Reporter Lim Hyun-woo [email protected]
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