WooX, a centralized exchange incubated by the Taiwanese quantitative trading team Kronos Research, has recently been rumored to have quietly been sold to BitMart. ABMedia, citing industry sources, indicates that the transaction is complete, with almost all of the top management leaving. However, BitMart's goal is not, as rumored, to expand its market presence in Taiwan through WooX, but rather to acquire regulatory licenses from WooX in several countries.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Xinyi District, Taipei City, Kronos Research claims to be one of the world's top five crypto quantitative funds. It has incubated flagship liquidity solutions such as Woo Network, WooX, WooFi, and Orderly, with WooX being a centralized exchange and WooFi being a DeFi-based on-chain exchange.
WooX boasts an impressive investor base, including market makers and quantitative analysts: Windemute, Presto, Riverside Hedge, QCP Capital, Antalpha, and Amber Group. Notable venture capital firms include Fenbushi Capital, IOSG Ventures, and the now-bankrupt Three Arrows Capital. Exchanges such as YZi Labs, Cryptocom Capital, MEXC Ventures, Gate Ventures, LBank Labs, and Bitmart are also represented.
Since WooX is essentially an offshore exchange, rather than a compliant domestic exchange like BitoPro or MAX that offers fiat currency trading, it announced at the end of 2024 that it would cease providing services to users in Taiwan.
An industry insider revealed to ABMedia that the WooX platform has been quietly sold to BitMart, with almost all of its executives leaving. The insider speculated that the reason behind this is that BitMart still wants to develop the Taiwan market.
However, ABMedia confirmed with a former WooX executive that WooX's sale to BitMart was true. However, he believed that BitMart's acquisition target was WooX's regulatory licenses in some countries, rather than the Taiwan market that WooX had abandoned three years ago.
This article, which discusses the rumored change of ownership of WooX, a centralized exchange under the Taiwanese quantitative trading team Kronos Research, to BitMart, first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
