sbi

According to CoinDesk, Shinhan Card, a subsidiary of South Korea's Shinhan Financial Group, is collaborating with a subsidiary of Japan's SBI Holdings to explore the payment applications of a yen stablecoin between the two countries. Participants include the cryptocurrency exchange SBI VC Trade and the trade finance blockchain company SBI XDC Network APAC.The collaboration will study scenarios such as card-linked merchant payments for Japanese tourists visiting South Korea, wallet-to-wallet transfers, and cross-border trade settlements, and will include suspicious transaction monitoring and anti-money laundering compliance systems. Shinhan Card serves approximately 20 million cardholders and stated that it will connect this project with Shinhan Financial's broader digital asset strategy, which includes an agreement reached in August with Visa to explore stablecoin issuance, transfers, and card settlements.Currently, the project is still in its early stages, and the parties have not disclosed the types of stablecoins to be tested, nor have they set a timeline for testing or commercial rollout. SBI has previously issued the yen stablecoin JPYSC, launched by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and introduced in collaboration with Startale Group, which had a circulation of approximately 20.1 billion yen (about 127 million USD) as of September 7. JPYSC is currently only available for use in SBI VC Trade accounts and cannot be transferred to external wallets. Its circulation on the public chain depends on legal and tax clarity and regulatory approval, and the parties have not indicated whether JPYSC will be included in this test.

On October 16, SBI Holdings and Startale Group announced their participation in Open Standard to explore the interoperability of the dollar-pegged stablecoin OUSD and the yen-denominated trust-based stablecoin JPYSC. The article states that Open Standard will launch in June 2026, and the alliance already includes over 140 global companies, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase, with OUSD already publicly launched on-chain. The announcement clarified that this only involves exploring a pilot project and does not represent the launch of new commercial services or the initiation of production environment settlements or trading activities.Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, Chairman, President, and CEO of SBI Holdings, stated that cross-border transactions will become more common, and seamless conversion between yen and dollar stablecoins is crucial. Joining Open Standard and exploring related proof of concepts is an important step. He also mentioned that the SBI Group has been the first in Japan to offer dollar stablecoins USDC and RLUSD. Startale Group CEO Sota Watanabe stated that joining Open Standard reflects both parties' belief that the future of finance is on-chain, borderless, and interoperable, and that the pilot interoperability of JPYSC and OUSD is of significant importance.JPYSC is issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and is positioned as an on-chain yen settlement infrastructure compliant with Japan's Payment Services Act and trust law framework. In July 2026, SBI Global Asset Management, DigiFT, and Startale announced a proof of concept for tokenized securities settlement and distribution payments, considering the future use of JPYSC. Open Standard claims it was established in 2026, with founding partners including Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe, and Visa, and over 200 institutions have signed up to add OUSD to the platform.

According to The Block, KB Kookmin Card has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's SBI Holdings to test AI agent-based identity verification and explore cross-border cryptocurrency payments.The two parties will study ways for Japanese tourists to pay Korean merchants using cryptocurrency assets, including stablecoins. KB Kookmin Card is a credit card company under KB Financial Group, and SBI Holdings is a Japanese financial holding group.

Japanese licensed cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank announced that SBI Holdings has completed its full subsidiary acquisition. Along with Bitbank repurchasing shares from MIXI and Ceres, all previously planned transactions have been realized, making Bitbank a 100% indirectly held subsidiary of SBI Holdings. The total consideration for the share acquisition and capital increase disclosed by SBI earlier is approximately 46.7 billion yen.Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirose will remain in position. The company stated that existing exchange services will not be affected by this transaction, and it will further expand its digital asset business relying on SBI's financial capabilities, customer base, and resources.

Stablecoin payment company dtcpay announced that it has received strategic investment from Japanese financial giant SBI Group, with the total amount of Series A financing expanding to 25 million USD. This round was led by Vertex Ventures, a subsidiary of Temasek, in April, with follow-on investment from Genedant Capital, which manages over 2 billion USD in assets, and continued support from Guo Liangde, the founder of Capella Hotel Group. SBI Group stated that this investment marks the beginning of a strategic partnership between the two parties, aiming to jointly expand the digital asset corridor between Japan and Southeast Asia.dtcpay is an official member of Visa and has issued a compliant stablecoin Visa card; its licensed operations cover regions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Australia, the United States, and Canada, and it continues to expand, providing compliant infrastructure for global stablecoin payments.

SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial services group, announced an investment of $270 million in the Indonesian multi-asset investment platform Ajaib Group, acquiring approximately 20% minority equity, making the Jakarta-based Ajaib an equity method associate of SBI. Ajaib confirmed this strategic investment in a LinkedIn post on Friday, stating that it is the largest tech financing in Indonesia since 2022, bringing its total funding since 2019 to over $500 million.Ajaib offers investment channels including domestic and international stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, crypto assets, stablecoins, commodities, and foreign exchange, while also covering payment and savings services, and providing over-the-counter stablecoin settlement services and liquidity support for Indonesian businesses and institutional investors. SBI stated that this collaboration will promote the adoption of digital assets in Asia and continue to expand its business footprint in the region.The SBI Group operates the Japanese crypto exchange SBI VC Trade, the Singapore exchange Coinhako, and the UK market maker B2C2. Other digital asset projects include the yen stablecoin JPYSC and the Layer 1 blockchain Strium developed for financial applications. SBI Holdings Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao stated that in the era of tokenization, the importance of global infrastructure for digital assets is increasingly prominent. SBI is establishing a network of digital asset exchanges in Southeast Asia through the "SBI APAC Digital Economic Zone" initiative, and Ajaib's model of combining traditional financial products with digital assets aligns with this strategy.

According to CoinDesk, Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings plans to acquire a 20% stake in Indonesian online brokerage Ajaib Group for $270 million by the end of this month to expand the circulation of its yen stablecoin JPYSC in Southeast Asia and utilize blockchain technology to build cross-border settlement infrastructure.Ajaib provides a foothold for SBI to enter the Indonesian market. Indonesia is one of the largest retail investment markets in ASEAN, with over 20 million retail investors and an estimated retail market size of $375 billion. Ajaib operates online brokerage, forex margin trading, cryptocurrency, and asset management businesses in Indonesia, and this $270 million deal is also the largest tech financing in Indonesia in years.SBI Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao stated that in the era of tokenization, the importance of global digital asset infrastructure is becoming increasingly prominent. This investment is part of SBI's strategy in Southeast Asia, having previously acquired Singapore cryptocurrency exchange Coinhako for about $100 million and invested in Singapore digital securities trading platform DigiFT. The Japanese government has also recently announced plans to build blockchain infrastructure for stocks and government bonds, with the expectation of launching 24/7 on-chain settlement in the early 2030s.

According to CoinDesk, the new stablecoin bank Fasset has raised $68 million in funding led by the SBI Group, with a valuation of $1 billion. The company's annual trading volume exceeds $40 billion, covering 125 countries, with revenue growing approximately six times year-on-year, and it has been profitable for 12 consecutive months.Fasset has built a proprietary Layer 2 network called OWN based on Arbitrum, providing cross-border payment services for stablecoin settlements to institutions and individuals, and has partnered with SBI Remit to access its remittance network covering 200 countries.

According to official news, Japanese gaming giant Gumi, through its subsidiary gC Labs, will launch the "SBI Crypto Fund I" cryptocurrency investment fund in collaboration with SBI Financial Services on August 1. The fund has a scale of approximately 3 billion yen (about 18.3 million USD), with a duration of three years, adopting a private placement structure, and several institutions including Daiwa Securities Group are participating in the investment.The fund will primarily invest in Bitcoin and mainstream altcoins, utilizing a combination of staking, rebalancing, and hedging strategies. The fund aims to serve as a bridge between the cryptocurrency asset market and Japanese enterprises, accumulating performance for the future development of financial products such as cryptocurrency ETFs. Currently, Japan has not yet approved cryptocurrency ETFs, and the launch of this fund is seen as an attempt to integrate traditional finance with digital assets.

SBI Holdings announced that it has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in the Singapore cryptocurrency platform Coinhako on July 16 and will include it within its consolidated subsidiaries.The transaction has received the necessary approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

SBI Group, DigiFT, and Startale Group have completed a joint proof of concept, demonstrating the full lifecycle of tokenized securities using the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYSC in an Ethereum testnet environment, including instant settlement for fund subscriptions and automatic on-chain dividend distribution.SBI Group and DigiFT are advancing the tokenization of the SBI Japan High Dividend Equity Fund, which is managed by SBI Asset Management with an asset management scale of approximately $1.3 billion, making it one of Japan's major public equity strategies. The three parties completed two tests, one demonstrating the near-instant settlement of fund subscriptions using JPYSC, and the other automatically calculating and distributing dividends to eligible token holders' wallets via smart contracts after the allocation registration is completed.The three companies plan to explore the integration of tokenized Japanese stocks with institutional DeFi platforms and consider testing use cases such as collateralized lending and on-chain asset management with ecosystem partners like Morpho and Gauntlet.

According to official news from SBI Holdings, it will reach a strategic cooperation with the Solana Foundation, aimed at promoting the construction of the on-chain financial market in Japan. As part of the cooperation, the Solana Foundation will participate in SBI R3 Japan, which plans to be renamed SBI Solana Global, and will jointly promote related growth strategies with shareholders SBI Holdings and SMFG.The announcement stated that SBI Solana Global will be based on the Solana network in the future, focusing on promoting the issuance and circulation support of stablecoins such as JPYSC, the formation and circulation of tokenized RWA (including corporate bonds, commercial paper, funds, and real estate), the construction of cross-border payment infrastructure, on-chain financial services aimed at institutional investors, and the development of next-generation payment infrastructure for the AI Agent era.

Japan's SBI Group plans to launch a lending service that offers a 3% annual yield on the JPYSC stablecoin held by users. The service is expected to go live as early as this month.

According to Fortune, DeFi asset management and risk analysis company Gauntlet has completed a $125 million financing round, exclusively invested by Japanese financial group SBI Holdings. The financing was completed in June of this year, and the specific valuation has not been disclosed.This is Gauntlet's largest financing round since its establishment in 2018, far exceeding its $24 million Series B financing round led by Ribbit Capital in 2022, which had a valuation of $1 billion.Gauntlet was founded by former Wall Street quantitative trader Tarun Chitra, initially focusing on providing stress testing and vulnerability analysis services for DeFi protocols. As the DAO governance model declined, it gradually transformed into a "vault curation" business—evaluating yield strategy risks through quantitative analysis to help institutional investors manage digital asset allocation. Its current clients include asset management giant Apollo, Coinbase, and stablecoin issuer Circle.

EDX Markets, a digital asset technology company, announced the completion of a $76 million Series C funding round, led by Japan's comprehensive financial group SBI Holdings. This round of financing will be used to expand its trading, clearing, and settlement capabilities, accelerate product development, and expand its global business.SBI Holdings has recently been actively investing in the digital asset field, including the issuance of Japan's first trust bank-supported yen stablecoin JPYSC, and promoting the domestic circulation of dollar stablecoins such as RLUSD and USDC. In addition, EDX launched its crypto-as-a-service product EDX FlowConnect™ earlier this year and submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a regulated national trust bank, EDX Trust, to provide digital asset custody, clearing, and settlement services.

Cryptocurrency exchange EDX Markets, supported by Wall Street giants, announced the completion of a $76 million Series C funding round, led by Japanese financial group SBI Holdings. The funds will be used to expand its institutional digital asset trading, clearing, and settlement capabilities, accelerate product development, and drive global business expansion.SBI previously launched the yen stablecoin JPYSC, supported by trust banks, and plans to handle dollar stablecoins such as RLUSD and USDC in Japan. This investment is seen as part of its strategy to strengthen compliance and digital asset infrastructure. Earlier this year, EDX launched the "EDX Flow Connect" crypto-as-a-service product and submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a regulated custody and clearing institution, EDX Trust, to provide custody, clearing, settlement, and risk management services for institutions.

According to Decrypt, Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings' wholly-owned subsidiary SBI Crypto announced that it will officially close its Bitcoin mining pool service on July 31. Before this, the mining pool will maintain normal operations, and customers can continue to mine and receive earnings as usual.It is reported that SBI Crypto's cryptocurrency mining service has been operating since 2017 and currently ranks 11th in the global hashrate ranking according to Hashrate Index. To assist customers in a smooth transition, the platform is negotiating with other mining pool operators such as Braiins and Luxor. Analysts point out that this move reflects a trend where large mining companies are gradually adjusting their business focus in response to Bitcoin price fluctuations and changes in the industry environment. Despite divesting from the mining pool business, its parent company SBI is still increasing its investment in the cryptocurrency market and just announced earlier this week the acquisition of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank for $289 million.

According to BBX data, last weekend Japan's largest financial group completed the most important cryptocurrency acquisition, and U.S. bipartisan senators launched a new regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms. The core developments are as follows:SBI Holdings, Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 8473) announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank (privately held) for approximately $289 million. After the transaction is completed, SBI's cryptocurrency business will surpass all competitors, creating Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchange. SBI Holdings is one of Japan's largest independent financial services groups, already owning cryptocurrency-friendly network bank SBI Shinsei Bank, cryptocurrency asset custodian SBI Digital Asset Holdings, and multiple Bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency venture capital investments. Bitbank is one of Japan's largest spot BTC exchanges and holds an official cryptocurrency exchange license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan. This acquisition marks a shift for traditional Japanese financial institutions from "strategic trial" in the cryptocurrency sector to "scale acquisition dominance," alongside the joint stablecoin plan of the three major banks: Mitsubishi UFJ ($MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui ($SMFG), and Mizuho ($MFG) (targeting March 2027), forming the most intensive wave of cryptocurrency layout in Japan's financial industry by 2026.U.S. Senators John Curtis (Republican, Utah) and Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) reported on June 28 that they jointly sent a letter to the CFTC, urging it to conduct a formal investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket (privately held), citing a "concerning" investigative report regarding Polymarket's "deceptive marketing" practices, which accused it of systematic misleading in user acquisition and risk disclosure. This is the third regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms initiated by Congress this year (previously, the House Oversight Committee launched an insider trading investigation on May 22); the two senators come from different parties, which is significant. For Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: $HOOD), this investigation poses indirect pressure—Robinhood's prediction market/event contract business (which achieved a record daily trading volume in June) faces the same regulatory qualitative disputes as Polymarket; however, Robinhood's defensive advantage lies in its ongoing application for a CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM) license, providing a clearer compliance path compared to Polymarket.

According to Nikkei News, SBI Group announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately 289 million USD). Through this acquisition, SBI's cryptocurrency custody balance is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen (about 6.2 billion USD), making it the largest cryptocurrency business in Japan. A subsidiary of SBI Holdings will acquire shares of Bitbank from individual shareholders, including the founders, in August, and then Bitbank will acquire shares held by existing shareholders Mixi and Ceres by the end of October. Combining the account data from SBI VC Trade (as of April), the total number of accounts after the merger is approximately 2.92 million, with total managed assets of about 1.1 trillion yen. SBI Holdings disclosed in May that it is negotiating capital business cooperation for the subsidiary status of Bitbank.