Japanese financial giant SBI Group has announced a significant expansion in its digital asset operations, revealing plans to acquire Bitbank, the country’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, for approximately $289 million. The transaction will unfold in multiple stages, culminating with Bitbank merging into SBI’s key crypto platform, SBI VC Trade.
Acquisition to proceed in phases
According to the plan released by SBI, an affiliate under the umbrella of SBI Holdings will first buy back Bitbank shares from individual stakeholders, including the exchange’s founder. Following this, Bitbank is set to acquire shares from institutional partners MIXI and Ceres by the end of October.
Bitbank has established itself as one of the leading crypto exchanges in Japan’s digital asset landscape. Meanwhile, SBI Group acts as a major financial institution in the country, with a broad portfolio spanning banking, securities, insurance, and digital assets.
Industry leadership targeted post-merger
Once the acquisition and merger are completed, SBI Group intends to combine Bitbank with SBI VC Trade. This integration is expected to bring the combined number of customer accounts to over 2.9 million, with total assets under custody projected to reach approximately 1.1 trillion yen.
After the merger between Bitbank and SBI VC Trade, the customer base is anticipated to surpass 2.9 million and assets under management are forecast to climb to nearly 1.1 trillion yen.
If achieved, these figures would make the new entity the largest player in Japan’s crypto market. For context, bitFlyer currently oversees assets worth around 960 billion yen, while Coincheck manages about 800 billion yen. Reports also indicate that other major players like Binance Japan and Rakuten Wallet may fall behind at this scale, despite their robust institutional networks.
Key links to XRP and RLUSD
The deal is drawing particular attention within the XRP community. SBI is known to hold one of the largest XRP reserves outside the United States, making this acquisition and subsequent merger noteworthy in the context of its longstanding ties with Ripple.
Previously, Ripple and SBI Group jointly announced the official launch of RLUSD, a stablecoin subject to stringent regulatory standards. This milestone followed authorization by Japan’s Financial Services Agency. RLUSD is designed for both institutional and retail users, serving as a bridge for payments, tokenization, and collateral management.
Mini glossary: RLUSD is a stablecoin developed by Ripple that aims to preserve a one-to-one value with fiat currency. Tokenization refers to the process of converting real-world assets or financial rights into digital representations on a blockchain.
The collaboration between Ripple and SBI Group dates back to 2016. As such, this latest integration and acquisition move is seen as the continuation of a long-standing partnership between the two companies.
