NXMH purchased an 80% ownership stake in the Luxembourg-based cryptocurrency exchange, which launched in 2011, shortly after the first “bitcoin bubble” drove the bitcoin price up as high as USD 31 and then back down to USD 2.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but, earlier this year, rumors had circulated that the cryptocurrency exchange was seeking as much as USD 400 million and was in the final stages of inking an agreement with a South Korean investment company.
While NXMH is headquartered in Belgium, not South Korea, it is a subsidiary of NXC, the South Korean technology investment company that also owns regional cryptocurrency exchange giant Korbit.
Bitstamp co-founder and CEO Nejc Kodric said that the exchange had four interested suitors but chose NXMH since it was willing to allow the bitcoin exchange to continue operating as an independent entity.
Cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital, which invested USD 10 million in Bitstamp in 2014, also sold a portion of its stake to NXMH but retained some interest in the exchange.
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