SBI to swallow Bitbank whole for ¥46.7B, crowns itself Japan’s crypto kingpin 🏯

SBI Holdings announced Thursday that it will acquire Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank for approximately ¥46.7 billion ($288.65 million), a transaction the company said will create Japan’s largest crypto exchange by assets under custody. The deal, approved by SBI’s board, will be executed through its wholly owned subsidiary SBICAH LLC.

Under the agreement, SBICAH will purchase shares from Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirosue and other individual shareholders, then subscribe to a third-party share allotment by Bitbank. Bitbank will use the proceeds of that capital increase to buy back stakes held by its two largest corporate shareholders, MIXI Inc. and Ceres Inc., leaving SBI with 100% indirect ownership of the exchange. The share transfer is expected to be completed in August 2026, with the remaining steps and capital increase slated to close around October 2026, pending clearance from Japan’s Fair Trade Commission.

SBI said the transaction involves buying back 53,704 shares from existing shareholders and purchasing another 48,952 shares as part of the capital increase. SBI stated that combining Bitbank with its existing crypto subsidiary SBI VC Trade would give the group approximately ¥1.1 trillion in assets under custody and roughly 2.92 million crypto accounts, based on end-of-April figures. The combined entity would rank first among Japanese crypto exchanges by assets under custody and among the largest by number of accounts, according to SBI.

Bitbank reported a net loss for the fiscal year ended December 2025, after two years of profitability, according to financial disclosures included in SBI’s announcement. Bitbank’s daily trading volume has hovered below $50 million for most of the last four months, CoinGecko data showed, with the $BTC/JPY pair dominating at 39.5%, followed by XRP/JPY and ETH/JPY, each at 19.7%. SBI said the deal will enhance its crypto business in Japan and strengthen its competitive position, while describing the expected impact on its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year ending March 2027 as minor.

The acquisition is the latest move in SBI’s broader digital asset strategy, which includes crypto trading, stablecoin issuance, and tokenized financial products. On Wednesday, SBI and Startale Group launched JPYSC, a yen-pegged stablecoin issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and distributed by SBI VC Trade, initially limited to transfers within SBI VC Trade accounts. The same day, Ripple and SBI Group launched the dollar-backed Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in Japan, also through SBI VC Trade, making it available to institutional and retail customers following regulatory approval. Earlier, in February, SBI and Startale unveiled Strium, a layer-1 blockchain designed to support around-the-clock trading and settlement of tokenized equities and real-world assets.