SBI Takes Full Ownership of Bitbank in $289 Million Transaction

Japan’s SBI Holdings has entered agreements that will hand it complete control of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank through a 46.7 billion yen ($289 million) purchase, a step that positions the merged entity as the country’s largest platform by assets under custody.

The transaction structure consolidates ownership under SBI. SBI’s wholly owned subsidiary SBICAH will purchase shares from Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirosue along with additional holders, followed by a third-party allotment subscription. Bitbank will subsequently repurchase shares currently owned by MIXI and Ceres, resulting in SBI holding 100 percent indirect ownership. The company anticipates completing the transaction near October pending regulatory approval, SBI stated.

Combined operations will lead Japanese crypto by key metrics. Bringing Bitbank together with SBI VC Trade is projected to yield approximately 1.1 trillion yen in assets under custody and roughly 2.92 million crypto accounts using end-of-April data. The enlarged operation would rank first among domestic exchanges by assets under custody while standing among the top platforms by number of accounts. Bitbank’s average daily trading volume has remained under $50 million across most of the past four months, led by the BTC/JPY trading pair at 39.5 percent, with XRP/JPY and ETH/JPY each contributing 19.7 percent.

Bitbank services continue unchanged for customers. Existing users will see no disruption to trading or account functions after the acquisition. The move reportedly broadens SBI’s regulated presence and opens fresh channels to distribute its stablecoins, tokenized assets and onchain financial products.

SBI accelerates its digital-asset infrastructure buildout. This transaction follows the February introduction of Strium, a layer-1 blockchain developed alongside Startale Group that targets continuous trading and settlement for tokenized equities plus real-world assets. On June 24 the partners released the yen-pegged stablecoin JPYSC, issued via SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and initially restricted to internal SBI VC Trade transfers while legal and tax issues are resolved. The same day SBI VC Trade began offering the dollar-backed Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin to both institutional and retail clients in Japan after securing approval for foreign-issued stablecoins.