SBI Holdings Incorporated

SBI Digital Trust, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, announced on October 1 that it will jointly conduct verification with two Korean companies, payment provider NICE Information & Telecommunication and blockchain infrastructure firm DSRV Labs, on cross-border remittance and payments between Japan and Korea using stablecoins. The three companies signed a basic agreement on September 30 aimed at future commercialization, and will examine fund flows from users to merchants, methods for connecting each company's systems, expected transaction volumes, and costs, with the goal of completing the work by the end of December 2026. In the verification, a Japanese user will scan a QR code at a NICE Information & Telecommunication merchant, and stablecoins will be used to settle with the Korean-side merchant, while the companies also check instruction methods for remittance and payment and operational issues. NICE Information & Telecommunication supports a network of about 1.2 million merchants in Korea, and the companies will consider payment and settlement operations at physical stores and methods for connecting with existing systems to confirm whether the business can work in an actual merchant environment, while DSRV will verify the blockchain technology and system architecture needed to transfer stablecoins. SBI Digital Trust will consider a Japan-Korea payment scheme in light of Japanese regulations and payment systems, working with companies across the SBI Group. In Korea, work is underway to develop rules for stablecoins, but the details are still under discussion, and the three companies will focus on the technical and operational aspects that can be verified at this point, deciding whether to commercialize based on regulatory developments. The SBI Group also signed a basic agreement with a Korean company in August to build a blockchain-based Japan-Korea payment network for financial institutions, and while the previous effort targeted a payment network intermediated by financial institutions, this time the focus is on payments by Japanese travelers at physical stores in Korea.

Bitbank, which operates a cryptocurrency exchange, announced on October 1 that the procedure to make it a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings has been completed. The two companies had announced the signing of an agreement toward the full acquisition on June 25, and the series of transactions was completed on October 1 when Bitbank acquired its own shares from existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres. The move will have no impact on Bitbank's services, and users will be able to continue using them as before. Accordingly, SBI VC Trade President Tomohiko Kondo has taken a position as a director of Bitbank. Meanwhile, Noriyuki Hirosue of Bitbank will continue to serve as representative director, president and CEO, and is also set to become an outside director of SBI VC Trade.

Bitbank, which operates a cryptocurrency exchange, announced on the 25th that it will transfer all shares of its subsidiary Japan Digital Asset Trust Preparation Co., Ltd. (JADAT) to Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. After the transfer, JADAT is expected to become a wholly owned subsidiary under the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group, and the transfer price was not disclosed. Bitbank did not indicate an execution date, but Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank said in its announcement the same day that the transfer is scheduled to be executed on October 1. JADAT is a company that had been preparing to establish a trust company specializing in digital assets, following a basic agreement signed in May 2022 between Bitbank and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings, now Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group, and it had planned to change its name to Japan Digital Asset Trust after registration under the Trust Business Act. Its custody targets were envisioned to include not only crypto assets but also security tokens on public blockchains, stablecoins, and NFTs. SBI Holdings, which is proceeding with making Bitbank a wholly owned subsidiary, posted the same content on its website as of the same date. In June, the company announced it would make Bitbank a wholly owned subsidiary through its wholly owned subsidiary SBICAH LLC, with an acquisition price of 46.7 billion yen, and the transaction is expected to be completed around October.

Tohoku Bank, headquartered in Morioka, has decided on a plan to raise about 4 billion yen through a third-party allotment of new shares, it was learned on the 30th. The subscribers to the capital increase will be mainly local companies, joined by SBI Holdings, its capital and business alliance partner. The funds raised are expected to be used in part to repay a portion of the 10 billion yen in public funds injected in 2012. Tohoku Bank announced on the 29th that it will hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting in December. It has not disclosed the agenda or details of the meeting, but it appears the third-party allotment will be put forward as a proposal.

JR Kyushu and SBI Holdings announced on September 25 that they will jointly develop a financial super app, tentatively named "JQ BANK," aiming to begin offering it during fiscal 2027. The plan assumes JR Kyushu will obtain a banking agency license with SBI Shinsei Bank as its affiliated bank, and it will leverage SBI Shinsei Bank's functions for banking and SBI Securities' functions for the securities segment. The financial platform underpinning JQ BANK will extend to crypto assets, FX, and stablecoin payments, with AI agents and media features also under consideration. Building on existing customer bases such as JR Kyushu Web members, the transit IC card SUGOCA, the JQ CARD credit card, and the JR Kyupo point service, the companies are considering offering perks tied to JR Kyushu Group services in station buildings, real estate, hotels, retail, and dining based on customers' use of financial services. Preferential mortgage rates are also under consideration, with JR Kyushu positioning itself not as a creator of financial products but as the holder of the gateway connecting finance and customers.

SBI Holdings announced on the 17th that it will make internet-related company Livedoor a wholly owned subsidiary. It will acquire all of Livedoor's shares from parent company Minkabu The Infonoid for about 7.5 billion yen. SBI Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao and Takafumi Horie, who led Livedoor, once clashed in the battle for Nippon Broadcasting System shares, so the two have now come together as a group, transcending their past feud. SBI will strengthen its media business by leveraging Livedoor's assets, including its news sites in Japan and overseas. Minkabu will also form a capital alliance with NTT Data, and the three companies including SBI will consider new services in the financial sector, aiming to become a financial information platformer originating in Japan.

Minkabu The Infonoid announced on the 17th that it will form a capital and business alliance with NTT Data and sign a three-party business partnership agreement with NTT Data and SBI Holdings. Minkabu shareholders will sell their shares to NTT Data, giving NTT Data more than 16% of Minkabu's voting rights. Meanwhile, Minkabu will sell all shares in its consolidated subsidiary Livedoor to SBI Holdings, using the gain to fully repay the group's borrowings, and will record about 3 billion yen as an extraordinary profit in its consolidated results for the fiscal year ending March 2027. SBI will become Minkabu's second-largest shareholder after NTT Data, holding just over 8% of its voting rights. Through the alliance, the three companies aim to combine the customer bases and financial business expertise of NTT Data and the SBI Group with Minkabu's financial data content and its touchpoints with individual investors to create and roll out new financial services.

Kyobo Life Insurance of South Korea announced on September 17 that it had completed a proof of concept for institutional fund transfers between Japan and South Korea conducted with the SBI Group. Since July, the two parties have tested a mechanism for directly exchanging yen-denominated and won-denominated stablecoins to move funds from Japan to South Korea without going through the US dollar, using test tokens. SBI Digital Practice, an SBI Group subsidiary, took part in the trial, confirming the flow of fund transfers, foreign exchange swaps, and settlement in the test environment of Canton Network, a blockchain for financial institutions. According to Kyobo Life, this is the first time South Korea's insurance industry has verified the full cross-border processing chain for institutional funds. Kyobo Life said the trial confirmed that the intermediary foreign exchange procedures could be simplified, processing times shortened, and transaction information tracked.

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin has reached approximately $2.345 billion in market cap as of September 16, 2026, a 1,278% year-to-date increase that makes it the third-fastest growing stablecoin of the year, with daily transfer activity tripling since January to $750 million per day by August. Roughly $963 million of the token sits on the XRP Ledger and $1.05 billion on Ethereum. Ripple is pursuing a vertically integrated strategy built on acquisitions rather than validators, including the $1.25 billion purchase of Hidden Road, now rebranded Ripple Prime, which clears roughly $3 trillion annually and lets RLUSD serve as collateral with zero haircut for over 300 institutional clients, alongside the $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury's treasury management platform, which reaches 1,200 corporate treasurers processing $13 trillion annually. Integrations include a September 2025 partnership with DBS and Franklin Templeton for 24/7 trading of tokenized money market funds, a Securitize link allowing holders of BlackRock BUIDL and VanEck VBILL to swap into RLUSD around the clock, and a Mastercard and WebBank pilot marking the first time a regulated US bank has settled card transactions on a public blockchain using a stablecoin. Ripple holds a New York Department of Financial Services trust company charter and conditional OCC approval, and launched in Japan via SBI under the JFSA's revised Payment Services Act, positioning itself around private-sector consensus and state-level charters after the CLARITY Act failed on September 15. The Federal Reserve Master Account remains the key bottleneck, and expansion into L2 networks via Wormhole NTT is still pending NYDFS approval.

SBI Group announced on September 7 that it has begun investing part of the reserve assets backing its trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin "JPYSC" in Japanese government bonds. The investment covers 1 billion yen of the trust assets backing JPYSC, allocated to short-term government bonds with maturities of three months or less. Under the revised Payment Services Act and related regulations, which took effect on June 1, 2026, trust-type stablecoin issuers can invest reserve assets in short-term government bonds with maturities of up to three months or redeemable time deposits, up to 50% of the issuance amount. As of September 7, the outstanding issuance of JPYSC was approximately 20.1 billion yen, and the outstanding balance of the accompanying lending service "JPYSC Lending" was approximately 6.9 billion yen, bringing the combined scale to approximately 27 billion yen. JPYSC is Japan's first trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin, issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, with SBI VC Trade acting as the issuing agent responsible for issuance and distribution. Its early provision began on June 24 within accounts at SBI VC Trade. Currently, it can only be used within SBI VC Trade accounts and cannot be sent to external wallets. Regarding trust-type stablecoins, the Financial Services Agency, in its tax reform requests for fiscal 2027 published at the end of August, is seeking an exemption from the obligation to submit tax documents imposed on trustees when holders change.

gumi rose for the first time in three days. The previous day, September 3, SBI Holdings announced that it would acquire additional shares of Brangista through its subsidiary SBINM to strengthen business consolidation, and expectations are growing that this could also be a tailwind for gumi, which is also advancing business collaboration with the SBI Group. Meanwhile, Brangista saw a rush of buying from the morning and was indicated at its limit-up price.

SBI Holdings announced on August 28 that it has made a strategic investment in Ajaib Group, which operates one of Indonesia's largest online comprehensive investment platforms, acquiring a 20% stake and making it an equity-method affiliate. The investment amount is 270 million US dollars (about 43 billion yen). Through this investment, SBI will collaborate with Ajaib in promoting the circulation of the yen-denominated stablecoin "JPYSC" and expanding its crypto asset business overseas. Ajaib, based in Jakarta, started as an online securities company and now handles stocks, bonds, investment trusts, ETFs, as well as crypto assets, stablecoins, and foreign exchange (FX), serving millions of retail investors. SBI has announced its "SBI APAC Digital Economy Vision" and is building a network of digital asset exchanges mainly in Southeast Asia. Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao positioned Ajaib as "a perfect match" for this vision. In July, SBI made a Singapore-based crypto exchange operator, Coinhako, a consolidated subsidiary, expanding its digital asset business base in Southeast Asia.

StarTail CEO Sota Watanabe announced on the 26th that the company aims to launch the testnet of Strium, a blockchain specialized for finance being developed jointly with SBI Holdings, within the year, and to operate the mainnet within fiscal 2026. Strium is also planned to support the tokenization of stocks and government bonds, as well as payments using the yen-denominated stablecoin JPYSC. SBI and StarTail jointly announced Strium in February 2026 as a layer-1 blockchain specialized for on-chain trading of financial assets, including crypto assets, tokenized stocks, and real-world assets (RWA). This latest announcement provides specific development timelines. The Nikkei reported on the 26th that the Financial Services Agency, the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Japan, and financial institutions will launch a study group this summer, with a plan to be compiled by early 2027. In his post, Watanabe expressed the intention to "contribute by leading with real products" while the government and the Bank of Japan proceed with institutional design. Strium's goals of instant settlement and 24-hour trading align with the direction of the government and the Bank of Japan's consideration of tokenizing current account deposits, with private-sector implementation taking the lead.

SBI Asset Management will launch and begin managing its second product under its business alliance with UK-based Man Group, the SBI-Man AI Insights Japan Equity Fund, nicknamed AI Senrigan, on August 28. The initial offering begins on August 17, with SBI Securities handling distribution. The fund scores roughly 1,800 Japanese stocks using proprietary models that employ AI, machine learning, and alternative data, and invests in a diversified portfolio of about 100 to 200 names. Actual management is handled by Man Numeric, the quantitative arm of Man Group. Its Japan equity strategy, the Numeric Japanese Core Strategy, has delivered an annualized return of 9.7 percent since inception at the end of March 2005 and 23.3 percent over the past five years, outperforming the TOPIX total return index over the same periods. Man Numeric has 82.1 billion dollars, or about 13 trillion yen, in assets under management and has established Alpha GPT, a proprietary system in which AI autonomously develops, validates, and improves investment models.

Five major online brokerages, including SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities, will make it possible to buy and sell US stocks during Japan's daytime hours, Nikkei reported on the 12th. Behind this is the extension of trading hours in US stock markets. Nasdaq plans to extend trading to 23 hours on weekdays, with the SEC approving a rule change in April this year and a start scheduled for December 2026. Nasdaq's current trading hours are from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m. US Eastern Time, but overnight trading from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next morning will be added, and from Japan's perspective, this US nighttime falls exactly during the daytime. NYSE Arca, under the New York Stock Exchange, and the major US exchange Cboe are also moving in a similar direction, because US stocks are no longer a trading target only for Americans. In March this year, PayPay listed on the Nasdaq in the US. One of Japan's leading payment services chose a US stock market rather than Japan as its listing venue. Companies list in the US. Investors are in Japan. Smartphone apps connected the two.

SBI Digital Practices, a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, announced it will sign a memorandum of understanding with Korea's Nodeinfra to build a Japan-Korea payment network using the Canton Network blockchain for financial institutions. The initiative aims to reduce time, costs, and foreign exchange and settlement risks in payments between Japanese and Korean companies by utilizing yen-denominated stablecoins and other instruments. The two companies will advance the Musubi Project, exploring yen-denominated stablecoins as well as won-denominated and US dollar-denominated stablecoins, tokenized assets for settlement, and mechanisms to simultaneously execute payments on both sides. SBI Digital Practices will handle development of connections with Japan's existing financial systems and support participation by financial institutions, while Nodeinfra will lead core system development, support participation by Korean financial institutions, and address local regulatory requirements. In the future, the project envisions expanding the range of currencies, countries and regions, and asset types.

NOT A HOTEL has announced total funding of 16.5 billion yen. It will raise 10 billion yen through a new share issuance, while 6.5 billion yen will move via share transfers from existing shareholders. The investors include Toyota Invention Partners, SBI Holdings, SBI Investment, Sequoia, and TT Lion Partners. The company operates a membership service that tokenizes accommodation usage rights as NFTs. In December 2024, it issued its own crypto asset NAC through an IEO via GMO Coin, raising 2 billion yen, which was one of the largest in Japan at the time. With this latest funding, major capital is now formally entering the phase of expanding businesses including NFTs, token operations, and the co-ownership mobility service NOT A GARAGE.

Circle will open the public mainnet of its Arc blockchain on September 16 with a founding validator cohort drawn almost entirely from traditional finance. BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, and Visa will secure the network alongside Circle. BlackRock is expected to deploy its tokenized money market fund BUIDL on Arc, while DTCC will enable tokenization of assets it custodies in the second half of 2027. The testnet has processed more than half a billion transactions across nearly 3 million wallets, and day-one DeFi protocols include Aave, Morpho, and Uniswap. Circle also reported second-quarter total revenue and reserve income of $701 million, up 7% year-over-year, with USDC in circulation closing at $73.3 billion.

On June 24, Japan's Financial Services Agency approved the operation of Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD under Japan's regulatory framework. It is the first foreign-issued dollar stablecoin to pass Japan's equivalence review and will be offered to both institutional and individual investors through SBI. RLUSD launched in Japan on Ethereum, but the majority of circulating RLUSD, roughly 51%, is already on the XRP Ledger, where the deepest market is the XRP-denominated pair. On the XRP Ledger this spring, monthly settlement volume for dollar stablecoins surpassed 5 billion dollars, roughly 75 times the level 18 months ago. Japan's approval signals that regulated dollars are beginning to function on-chain and could lead to a transformation of cross-border payment infrastructure.

Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings says its stake in Ripple remains worth roughly 6.6 trillion yen, about $45 billion, despite a recent slowdown in XRP's price. The valuation underscores the company's continued confidence in the blockchain firm as regulatory clarity begins to take shape.

SBI Holdings announced consolidated results for the April–June 2026 quarter, posting record-high revenue and profit. Financial income expanded amid buoyant market conditions, delivering strong figures under International Financial Reporting Standards.

SBI Holdings announced on the 30th that it has applied to the Tokyo Stock Exchange for the initial public offering of its consolidated subsidiary FOLIO Holdings, in which it holds approximately 69 percent. FOLIO Holdings is expanding its partnerships with financial institutions based on its investment management platform system and AI investment engine. SBI stated that the listing will accelerate business expansion in the financial sector, leading to stronger group synergies.

JPMorgan has expanded the supported currencies for its blockchain deposit accounts to eight, in a series of moves signaling that on-chain finance has entered the implementation phase. SBI envisions building a cutting-edge exchange featuring 24/7 trading, instant settlement, and stablecoin support, while JPYC aims to reach a scale of 100 billion yen within the fiscal year. Efforts by major domestic companies are also accelerating, with Lawson starting a proof-of-concept for JPYC payments in August and JCB considering collaboration with Circle on stablecoin utilization. Globally, DTCC has begun live trading of tokenized securities, BlackRock is advancing the convergence of crypto assets and traditional finance, and Visa has announced its stablecoin platform VSP. These developments indicate that stablecoins, tokenized deposits, on-chain government bonds, and ETFs are becoming interconnected, forming on-chain finance as a next-generation financial infrastructure.

Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings has officially completed the acquisition of a controlling stake in Singapore-based crypto exchange Coinhako through its subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset. The transaction received full approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and has now been formally closed.

SBI Holdings has formed a strategic partnership with US real-world asset tokenization firm Ondo Finance. The two companies aim to tokenize domestic assets including Japanese stocks and offer them to overseas investors through Ondo's on-chain platform. Meanwhile, they will also consider distributing Ondo's overseas tokenized products within Japan through SBI Group's customer base. Furthermore, they will explore using SBI Group's trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin, JPYSC, for on-chain settlement and as collateral for tokenized products. JPYSC is Japan's first trust-type yen stablecoin, issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and distributed by SBI VC Trade. It was launched on June 24, with 3.8 billion yen already issued.

Charles Hoskinson publicly clashed with the Cardano community after Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings announced an alliance on the Solana blockchain to launch stablecoins and tokenize assets, sparking criticism among ADA holders.

Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings has announced a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation. As part of the deal, SBI R3 Japan will shift its focus and be renamed SBI Solana Global. The move continues SBI's push to steer Japan's conservative capital market toward public blockchains.

SBI Holdings Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao has indicated plans to build a next-generation, on-chain and AI-oriented trading platform, leveraging the transition of Japannext Securities to a financial instruments exchange. The new platform aims to deliver 24-hour, 365-day trading, instant settlement, micro-transactions, and stablecoin compatibility, while also envisioning the development of a high-speed, high-frequency trading system for future AI agent-to-agent trading. This vision was presented as part of the SBI Group's on-chain financial strategy, alongside initiatives such as the trust-type yen stablecoin JPYSC, the US dollar stablecoin RLUSD, and the tokenization of real-world assets.

SBI Group's DeFimans, Perplexity AI, ANDLAW FZCO, NSSOL, and SMBC Nikko Securities have signed a basic agreement to jointly test a next-generation execution infrastructure in the digital asset space. The initiative aims to optimize trading across traditional financial markets and on-chain and off-chain markets, and will examine the acquisition and integration of price information across multiple markets, strategy verification spanning spot and derivatives, and the generation of trading hypotheses using AI. The backdrop is the expansion of the on-chain real-world asset market, excluding stablecoins, to a scale exceeding 30 billion dollars. The five companies will gradually advance technical verification with an eye on production environments, and over the medium to long term aim to build an execution infrastructure that accommodates the digitization of a broad range of financial markets, including crypto ETFs and tokenized securities.

SBI Securities, Daiwa Securities, SBI Digital Markets, Penguin Securities, and BOOSTRY announced on July 8 the results of a proof-of-concept aimed at cross-border distribution of domestically issued security tokens. Limited to inter-dealer transactions with overseas securities firms, the test verified a configuration enabling delivery-versus-payment settlement using security tokens and the stablecoin USDC on the public blockchain Ethereum. Management for domestic investors is conducted on the consortium-based platform ibet for Fin, with the target security tokens mirrored onto Ethereum only when transacting with overseas securities firms. The proof-of-concept confirmed the potential to leverage a public blockchain while maintaining domestic rights management, and also addressed issues such as gas fee management, private key management, and legal and tax considerations. SBI Securities and Daiwa Securities conducted risk assessments of the platform's safety and reported to self-regulatory organizations.

SBI VC Trade announced on July 7 that account registrations for its crypto asset trading service have surpassed 2 million. This figure combines accounts from VCTRADE and BITPOINT, and according to the Japan Crypto Asset Trading Association, it represents about 14 percent of the roughly 14.23 million accounts held by domestic crypto asset exchange operators as of the end of May 2026. SBI VC Trade merged with Bitpoint Japan in April 2026, and the 2 million milestone reflects the combined scale of both services after the merger. Going forward, the company plans to integrate the two brands around the end of December 2026, aiming to reduce costs and standardize service levels. Additionally, SBI Holdings announced on June 25 that it will make Bitbank, operated by bitbank, a wholly owned subsidiary. A simple sum of SBI VC Trade and Bitbank accounts as of the end of April 2026 would total approximately 2.92 million, representing about 20 percent of the domestic total and positioning the group as a top-tier player.

SBI Holdings announced on July 8 that it has invested in EDX Markets, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange for institutional investors. SBI Holdings participated as the sole investor in EDX Markets' Series C funding round totaling 76 million dollars, or about 12 billion yen. Through this investment, SBI aims to advance reliable market infrastructure that supports the expanding use of digital assets by institutional investors. EDX Markets is a US company providing digital asset infrastructure that combines a trading market for institutional investors with central clearing functions. This year, it launched EDX FlowConnect, which enables firms to offer digital asset trading services to their customers, and has also applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish EDX Trust, a national trust bank. SBI has been expanding its digital asset ecosystem, including the launch of Japan's first trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin, JPYSC, by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank on June 24, as well as the domestic handling of dollar-denominated stablecoins RLUSD and USDC. Through this partnership with EDX Markets, SBI aims to broaden market access and drive greater use of digital assets.

Japanese businesses are increasingly buying Bitcoin and XRP to pay shareholder bonuses and dividends as the yen declines, according to a report from SBI VC Trade. The crypto exchange, owned by financial giant SBI Holdings, has surpassed 2 million registered accounts. The trend reflects a shift in corporate treasury strategies amid the yen's historic depreciation.

SBI Group has announced a major expansion into the crypto space, with its assets reaching 1 trillion yen following a major acquisition. The Japanese financial service provider, closely associated with Ripple, disclosed the milestone amid growing adoption of crypto-based products in Japan. Further details on the acquisition were not immediately provided.