How SBI Built Japan's Largest Crypto Business

SBI Holdings is a Tokyo-listed financial conglomerate that has spent 10 years turning itself into one of Japan's largest regulated crypto operators. Its exchange passed 2 million registered accounts on July 6, 2026. It distributes three stablecoins. And it has agreed to buy one of its largest domestic rivals for ¥46.7 billion, about $289 million.

What makes the story worth telling is the timing. SBI was building licensed crypto rails while most traditional finance firms were still writing memos about whether blockchain was real. There was never a moment of conversion. The group just kept adding pieces, year after year, inside a regulatory framework that punished anyone cutting corners.

What is SBI Holdings?

SBI was founded on July 8, 1999 as SoftBank Investment Co., Ltd. It became fully independent from SoftBank in 2006 and rebranded to SBI Holdings, led by Chairman and CEO Yoshitaka Kitao (@yoshitaka_kitao). It trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange under ticker 8473.

The group is not a crypto company that grew into finance. It is the reverse. SBI runs SBI Securities, one of Japan's largest brokerages. It owns SBI Shinsei Bank. It has insurance, FX, asset management, and a venture arm in SBI Investment. Crypto sits inside that structure as one business line among many, which is exactly why it has been able to absorb losses and keep buying while smaller operators struggled.

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) has run a strict exchange licensing regime since 2017. Strict rules favor whoever can afford compliance. SBI could, and the result is a market where the biggest regulated player also happens to be a mainstream financial institution.

The Ripple connection: a decade of XRP

No traditional finance firm anywhere has a longer relationship with @Ripple.

SBI Ripple Asia launched on May 18, 2016 as a joint venture to push XRP Ledger technology for cross-border payments across Japan and Asia. SBI has held roughly 9% of Ripple since that year, the largest outside stake anyone holds in the company.

The commitment showed up in product decisions. When SBI Virtual Currencies opened its exchange in beta on January 30, 2018, it listed XRP and nothing else. That service later became VC TRADE. SBI Remit still runs live cross-border corridors on Ripple Payments.

The relationship keeps pushing into new territory:

• December 17, 2025: SBI Ripple Asia signed a memorandum with Doppler Finance to explore XRP yield infrastructure and real-world asset tokenization on the XRP Ledger, with SBI Digital Markets as institutional custodian.
• February 2026: SBI issued a blockchain-based bond worth ¥10 billion, roughly $64.5 million, that paid retail investors rewards in XRP.
• June 10, 2026: SBI Shinsei Bank started a pilot letting depositors redeem 20% of their deposit interest as vouchers for $BTC, $ETH, or $XRP, redeemable through SBI VC Trade. About 4.33 million accounts are eligible.
• June 24, 2026: Ripple USD (RLUSD) officially launched in Japan through SBI VC Trade after JFSA approval, the first foreign stablecoin cleared under Japan's revised Payment Services Act.
• July 13, 2026: SBI Digital Finance, which operates HashHub Lending, announced a partnership with Doppler to build institutional XRP lending and collateral infrastructure.

The Doppler deals fit together. December was about earning yield on XRP. July is about borrowing against it. Together they aim at the thing XRP has always lacked: a way for institutions to treat it as working capital instead of a payment token that sits idle.

Why is SBI buying its rivals?

Because in Japan, a license is harder to build than a product. SBI has grown its exchange business mostly by acquisitions:

• October 2020: TaoTao joins the group.
• December 2021: TaoTao merges with the old SBI Virtual Currencies entity, survives the merger, and is renamed SBI VC Trade Co., Ltd.
• May 2022: BITPoint Japan joins the group, later becoming wholly owned.
• 2024 to early 2025: DMM Bitcoin's customer accounts and custody assets are folded in after that platform's collapse.
• April 2026: BITPoint Japan is absorbed into SBI VC Trade, with brand integration due to finish by December 2026.

The largest move came on June 25, 2026, when SBI's board approved a definitive agreement to acquire Bitbank (@bitbank_inc) through its subsidiary, SBICAH, for approximately ¥46.7 billion, or about $289 million. The structure runs in stages. SBI buys 53,704 shares from CEO Noriyuki Hirosue and other individual holders around August. Bitbank then buys back the roughly 50% stake held by MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. Closing depends on Japan Fair Trade Commission clearance.

As of April 2026 data, the combined group would hold about ¥1.1 trillion in customer assets, roughly $6.8 billion, and around 2.92 million accounts. That puts it ahead of bitFlyer and Coincheck by assets under custody.

The price has drawn questions. Bitbank posted a net loss in its fiscal year ending December 2025 after two profitable years, and ¥46.7 billion works out to roughly eight times revenue. SBI is not buying earnings. It is buying a registered exchange with Kanto Local Finance Bureau licensing and direct retail distribution, which is the scarce asset in Japan right now.

Growth is not only coming from acquisitions. SBI VC Trade doubled its account base in a year, and the company points to corporate demand as the main driver through its SBIVC for Prime service, as Japanese firms shift treasury reserves into digital assets against a weakening yen.

Stablecoin ambitions

This is where the strategy gets clearer.

SBI VC Trade became the first platform in Japan authorized to handle $USDC for the general public in March 2025, following its registration as an Electronic Payment Instruments Exchange Service Provider. RLUSD followed, with limited distribution starting March 31, 2026 before the full public launch in June.

Then came $JPYSC on June 24, 2026, Japan's first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin. SBI Shinsei Trust Bank issues it, SBI VC Trade distributes it, and Singapore-based Startale Group built the technology. SBI put $50 million into Startale in March 2026, completing a $63 million Series A that opened with a $13 million first close from Sony Innovation Fund in January.

The trust structure matters more than the branding. Earlier yen stablecoins issued under the funds-transfer framework carried a ¥1 million cap on transactions and balances, about $6,200, which made them retail toys. JPYSC has no cap. Holders get a direct legal claim under trust law to segregated reserves.

On the same day, on the same platform, $RLUSD launched capped at roughly ¥1 million per transaction and on Ethereum only, not the XRP Ledger. The homegrown yen coin got institutional treatment. Ripple's dollar coin got retail limits.

At the moment, JPYSC only moves inside SBI VC Trade accounts. Public blockchain deployment waits on tax and regulatory clarification. SBI VC Trade opens applications on July 16 for a 12-week lending product paying 3% annually on JPYSC deposits.

Where it goes from here

On July 13, 2026, SBI announced a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation (@SolanaFndn). SBI R3 Japan, a joint venture with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group built around R3's permissioned Corda ledger, will be renamed SBI Solana Global. The Solana Foundation takes an equity stake. The venture targets five lines: stablecoin distribution, including JPYSC, tokenized corporate bonds and real estate, cross-border settlement, institutional on-chain services, and payment rails for AI agents.

Read that alongside the Ripple work and it looks less like a pivot than an addition. SBI is not picking a winner. USDC, RLUSD, and JPYSC serve different corridors. XRPL handles payments and lending. Solana handles tokenization. 

SBI has also been writing checks elsewhere, becoming the sole investor in Gauntlet's $125 million Series C and EDX Markets' $76 million Series C, and committing $200 million to Evernorth's planned public XRP treasury.

SBI has not said whether Bitbank survives as a distinct retail brand or folds into SBI VC Trade. The Japan Fair Trade Commission has not cleared the deal. And Japan's three megabanks, MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho, are building their own yen stablecoin through Progmat, with an interbank target of March 2027. 

Sources:

• Ripple Official press release announcing the RLUSD launch in Japan through SBI VC Trade following JFSA approval, June 24, 2026.
• Startale The company's own announcement of the $63 million Series A close, confirming the $50 million SBI second close and the January Sony tranche.
• The Block Reporting on the SBI Solana Global joint venture, the five business lines, and the JPYSC lending product details.
• Crypto Briefing Bitbank deal structure, staging, and the MIXI and Ceres share buyback mechanism.
• Crypto Briefing Details on the SBI Shinsei Bank deposit interest pilot, the February 2026 XRP-reward bond, and SBI VC Trade's custody figures.
• CryptoRank SBI's own aggregation of combined customer assets at ¥1.1 trillion and 2.92 million accounts, with dollar conversion.
• Crypto Potato SBI VC Trade's 2 million account milestone as of July 6, 2026, and the corporate treasury demand behind it.
• Analytics Insight Valuation analysis of the Bitbank deal, including the revenue multiple and the licensed distribution rationale.
• Fintech Observer Details on JPYSC's Type 3 Electronic Payment Instrument classification and the phased rollout.
• Financial IT Coverage of the SBI Ripple Asia and Doppler Finance memorandum on XRPL yield infrastructure.
• Crypto News Reporting on the July 2026 SBI Digital Finance and Doppler institutional XRP lending partnership.
• 24/7 Wall St Original analysis of the RLUSD transaction cap and Ethereum-only listing versus uncapped JPYSC.