The invisible cryptocurrency landscape of Japanese financial giant SBI

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

Recently, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings has made intensive moves in the digital asset field: within three weeks, it acquired the Japanese licensed exchange Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately 289 million USD), led a 76 million USD Series C funding round for the institutional crypto platform EDX Markets, exclusively invested 125 million USD in the DeFi risk analysis company Gauntlet, and announced a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation on July 13 to jointly build a local on-chain financial market in Japan.

In the past, SBI has primarily engaged in the crypto space through joint ventures, equity stakes, and overall acquisitions, rarely acting as a lead investor in venture rounds. If we carefully analyze the content, timing, and statements of all parties involved in this series of transactions and collaborations, as well as the evaluations of multiple institutional analysts regarding its strategy, how should the market interpret this acceleration by the traditional financial giant?

Intensive Moves Within Three Weeks

On June 24, SBI announced that it would acquire all shares of Bitbank through its wholly-owned subsidiary SBICAH for 46.7 billion yen. The transaction will be conducted in two phases, with delivery expected around October after approval from the Japan Fair Trade Commission. SBI stated that, based on data from the end of April, the combined crypto assets of SBI VC Trade (SBI's proprietary exchange) and Bitbank's customers would amount to approximately 11 trillion yen (about 6.8 billion USD), with around 2.92 million crypto accounts, surpassing bitFlyer and Coincheck to become the largest in Japan.

On July 7, the institutional-only crypto trading platform EDX Markets announced the completion of a 76 million USD Series C funding round, led by SBI. EDX launched in 2023, with shareholders including Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab, Virtu, Sequoia, and Paradigm. EDX stated that this round of funding will be used to expand trading, clearing, and settlement capabilities, and to drive expansion in the Asia-Pacific market.

On July 9, Fortune reported that the DeFi asset management and risk analysis company Gauntlet completed a 125 million USD financing round, which was delivered in June of this year, with SBI exclusively investing through its U.S. subsidiary, with no other participants in the round. This is Gauntlet's largest financing since its establishment in 2018, more than five times the approximately 24 million USD raised in its B round led by Ribbit Capital at a valuation of 1 billion USD in 2022.

The three transactions are different in nature, but the common point is that SBI is the sole or primary investor in each, rather than a co-investor.

SBI's Crypto Layout is Not New

SBI Group was established in 1999, initially as an investment institution under SoftBank, and became fully independent in 2006. The group is currently listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization of over 10 billion USD, making it one of the earliest and most actively involved traditional financial giants in the crypto industry. The company invested in Ripple in 2016 and established a joint venture, SBI Ripple Asia, and has since held shares in companies such as Morpho and Circle.

However, in most historical cases, SBI's role has been that of a strategic partner, joint venture partner, or acquirer, rather than a lead investor in venture rounds. For example, in the case of market maker B2C2, SBI first took a 30 million USD stake in July 2020 and acquired a 90% stake to make it a subsidiary in December of the same year. This model only changed this year: in March, when Startale Group completed a 63 million USD Series A funding round, SBI led with 50 million USD, and Startale was the technical partner that launched the yen stablecoin JPYSC with SBI three months later. The exclusive investments in EDX and Gauntlet continue this "lead investment equals binding" model.

What Each Transaction Complements

If we compare the three transactions against SBI's business landscape, we find that they correspond to three levels: retail, institutional, and on-chain.

Bitbank: Japanese Retail Market

Bitbank was established in 2014, and the company claims that no hacking incidents have occurred since its inception. SBI VC Trade only absorbed and merged with the Japanese exchange Bitpoint in April of this year, and with this acquisition of Bitbank, SBI has integrated two licensed peers in Japan within a year. Against the backdrop of the Japanese Financial Services Agency pushing to transition crypto assets from existing laws to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act framework, with compliance thresholds continuously rising, licenses and existing customer assets are scarce resources.

SBI stated in its announcement that this transaction will strengthen the group's presence, competitiveness, and profitability in the crypto and digital asset fields, and plans to develop new financial products linked to digital assets such as stablecoins.

EDX Markets: U.S. Institutional Infrastructure

EDX Markets does not cater to retail investors but provides a trading venue specifically for institutions, covering central clearing, settlement, and the FlowConnect service launched this year, which allows financial institutions to embed crypto trading capabilities.

EDX has also applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter, EDX Trust, which, if approved, will enable it to provide regulated custody, clearing, and settlement directly to institutional clients. EDX's current business includes a U.S. spot exchange and a perpetual contract platform for non-U.S. institutions in Singapore, with the next geographical expansion focus being the Asia-Pacific region.

Gauntlet: On-Chain Asset Management and Risk Control

Gauntlet was founded in 2018 by former Wall Street quantitative researcher Tarun Chitra, initially providing stress testing for protocols like Aave and Compound, and later transforming into an on-chain vault curation business. The operation of vault curation is similar to mutual funds: investors deposit assets into the vault in exchange for returns, and Gauntlet uses quantitative models to assess the risk of return strategies.

According to Fortune, Gauntlet currently manages approximately 1.5 billion USD in vault assets, with clients including Apollo, Coinbase, and Circle, and the automated platform monitors user assets exceeding 42 billion USD. After securing funding, Gauntlet plans to expand stablecoin coverage from USD and EUR to JPY and Mexican pesos.

Stablecoins and Settlement Layer: From JPYSC to Solana Cooperation

Beyond the three transactions, SBI is also actively collaborating with Solana to enhance its on-chain layout.

In the highly competitive stablecoin space, SBI Group is accelerating its land grab. On June 24, the same day SBI announced the acquisition of Bitbank, it launched Japan's first yen stablecoin "JPYSC" using a trust structure in collaboration with Startale Group, issued by its subsidiary SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, and exclusively circulated by SBI VC Trade. Following this, the USD stablecoin RLUSD from Ripple, with which SBI has collaborated for many years, also launched on the SBI VC Trade platform on the same day after passing review by the Japanese Financial Services Agency.

This means that the three major compliant stablecoins currently in Japan (JPYSC, USDC, RLUSD) have their key gateways for fiat and crypto assets firmly controlled by SBI VC Trade. To further expand the on-chain financial ecosystem, SBI also announced the launch of JPYSC lending services starting July 16, offering an annualized interest rate of 3%.

If the circulation of stablecoins is a land grab, then the strategic cooperation announced by SBI with Solana on July 13 extends the battle to the depths of underlying settlement and RWA. The announcement stated that the Swiss Solana Foundation will invest in "SBI R3 Japan," which will be renamed "SBI Solana Global." This means that Solana will join forces with SBI and Japanese financial giant Sumitomo Mitsui Trust (SMFG) to jointly create a local on-chain financial market in Japan.

The newly established SBI Solana Global will fully embrace the Solana public chain ecosystem. Its key business, in addition to accelerating the issuance of stablecoins like JPYSC, will focus on tokenizing and circulating RWA assets such as corporate bonds, commercial paper, funds, and real estate. Additionally, the team will build a cross-border payment network, institutional-grade on-chain financial services, and lay the groundwork for next-generation payment infrastructure for the future AI Agent era.

This marriage of traditional finance and top public chains has actually been in the works for some time. SBI's R3 blockchain alliance allied with the Solana Foundation in May 2025, allowing Solana to serve as the security verification layer for institutional permissioned chains. Today, R3's Corda platform manages over 10 billion USD in compliant RWA. SBI has stated that Solana's high scalability, extremely low costs, and global ecosystem are essential core infrastructures for on-chain finance. SBI's core mission is to serve as a bridge, packaging Japan's regulated assets and traditional institutional heritage onto Solana's global liquidity giant.

How Do the Market and Analysts View This?

This series of actions has sparked considerable discussion in the industry. Multiple institutional analysts and venture capitalists interviewed by The Block provided evaluations from different perspectives.

Structural Theory: Buying the "Pipelines" of the Financial System

Joseph Goh, Asia-Pacific head of investment banking advisory firm Areta, believes that SBI is doing what other traditional financial groups in Asia have not attempted: spanning issuance, settlement, market infrastructure, asset management, and retail distribution to create an end-to-end, cross-border digital asset industry chain. He characterizes this series of transactions as SBI buying not crypto risk exposure, but the "pipelines" of the next-generation financial system.

Goh specifically pointed out two main lines: in asset management, connecting Gauntlet's institutional-level on-chain capabilities with SBI's distribution through Bitbank and Singapore's Coinhako, which has the potential to become Asia's first scaled on-chain asset management business; in settlement, he believes that whoever controls the "yen end" of on-chain settlement may hold a strategic position for the future of Asian finance, and the circulation of JPYSC and USDC in Japan, along with cooperation with Solana, is precisely where SBI is focusing its efforts.

Timing Theory: Long-Term Logic of Entering During a Bear Market

Another group of commentators approached from the market cycle angle. Quynh Ho, head of investments at GSR Ventures, and Mike Bucella, co-founder of Neoclassic Capital, both believe that bear markets are often the best time for long-term positioning due to lower valuations and less intense competition for deals; Bucella stated that to play the long game, one should enter at the trough of the cycle, as market reversals will yield substantial returns.

In fact, this round of moves is occurring against the backdrop of digital assets experiencing a third consecutive quarter of decline. Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands, added from a regulatory perspective that SBI is positioning itself ahead of the upcoming regulatory changes in Japan, rather than waiting for clarity before taking action; he also revealed that some large crypto exchanges are being evaluated by traditional financial institutions.

Investee Perspective: Valuing Distribution and Access Beyond Capital

The two investee companies focused on the "value beyond money." When asked what SBI brings beyond capital, Gauntlet CEO Tarun Chitra stated that it is primarily distribution and market access, as SBI's network in Japan and Asia can help Gauntlet reach financial institutions and tokenization plans that were previously out of reach.

EDX CEO Tony Acuña-Rohter mentioned that they can access SBI's broader digital asset ecosystem, including market makers, stablecoin initiatives, tokenization, and brokerage services, exploring opportunities to jointly advance institutional market infrastructure.

However, the evaluations are not overwhelmingly positive. Joseph Goh cautioned that "execution and regulatory pace" will be the key to ultimate success or failure. However, he also believes that since both Bitbank and Coinhako are regulated licensed exchanges, coupled with SBI's flexible use of minority equity investments, the potential risks of cross-border integration and operations have been effectively reduced.

SBI's Own Statement

Regarding why it concentrated its efforts at this time, SBI stated in an interview with The Block that the group is promoting an overall on-chain transformation, aiming to provide a complete set of functions from exchanges, asset tokenization to market platforms, and the recent acquisitions, investments, and collaborations are all part of the group's strategy. Group head Kefei Lin told Fortune that as U.S. regulations become clearer, SBI will increase its investments and operations in the U.S. this year.

This confidence largely stems from the upcoming regulatory benefits in Japan. Last month, the Japanese House of Representatives passed a key bill proposing to bring crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and regulate them similarly to stocks, paving the way for crypto ETFs, and planning to significantly reduce the maximum capital gains tax from 55% to 20%, aligning it with stocks and bonds by 2028. SBI Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao has repeatedly emphasized: "The shift of traditional finance to on-chain is irreversible, and building a reliable infrastructure that gives investors peace of mind is the group's top priority."

It is noteworthy that SBI unusually chose to "lead" rather than "fully acquire" or "jointly invest" in this round of transactions. From a business strategy perspective, this is a highly intelligent move: the backers of investees EDX and Gauntlet include top Wall Street giants like Citadel, Fidelity, and Apollo, and only by maintaining their "neutral third party" status can they continue to attract giants to dance together. By leading the investment, SBI secures the strategic high ground of being the "largest single shareholder" without compromising neutrality. Whether this on-chain financial empire assembled by traditional financial giants can operate as intended remains to be seen by the global market.