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Japanese financial group SBI will acquire crypto asset exchange Bitbank for ¥46.7 billion ($289 million), with Bitbank set to become a consolidated subsidiary upon closing. The combined group's total assets under custody are expected to reach approximately ¥1.1 trillion (around $6.2 billion), enough to rank first in Japan's crypto industry by that measure.
Why it matters
SBI's custody stack had been growing on its own balance sheet through SBI VC Trade and other subsidiaries, but Bitbank brings a retail-facing spot exchange with deep liquidity in BTC, ETH, and XRP, plus an institutional-grade cold-storage setup. Consolidating those customer assets under one regulated entity compresses what was a fragmented Japanese market into a single dominant venue, and it gives SBI the scale to push further into tokenised deposits, stablecoin distribution, and securities-style token products that Japanese regulators have been clearing over the past 18 months.
Market impact
Rivals including bitFlyer, Coincheck, and GMO will face a structural scale gap on custody, with no obvious local counter-bid in sight. For XRP specifically, where Bitbank has long been one of the deepest JPY pairs globally, SBI now controls the largest venue-side liquidity pool in its home market. Watch for second-order moves: tighter spreads on JPY pairs, accelerated rollout of SBI's programmable yen stablecoin, and renewed M&A chatter around mid-tier Japanese exchanges that can no longer compete on scale.
Source: [SBI、仮想通貨交換ビットバンクの買収発表 預かり残高1兆円超に — 日本経済新聞社](https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUB253VH0V20C26A6000000/)
Frequently asked questions
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How much is SBI paying for Bitbank?
SBI will acquire Bitbank for ¥46.7 billion, roughly $289 million, with Bitbank set to become a consolidated subsidiary of SBI on closing.
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How large will the combined custody book be?
Total assets under custody across the combined SBI group are expected to reach approximately ¥1.1 trillion, around $6.2 billion, ranking first in Japan's crypto industry by that measure.
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Why is Bitbank valuable to SBI?
Bitbank operates a retail-facing spot exchange with deep BTC, ETH, and XRP JPY liquidity and an institutional-grade cold-storage setup, assets SBI's existing crypto subsidiaries had not matched on their own.
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Which Japanese crypto exchanges now trail SBI?
bitFlyer, Coincheck, and GMO are the most prominent domestic rivals left behind on custody scale after the deal, with no obvious local counter-bid immediately in sight.
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What XRP angle does the deal create?
Bitbank has long been one of the deepest XRP JPY pairs globally, so SBI now controls the largest venue-side XRP liquidity pool in its home market, a notable structural shift for XRP trading in Asia.
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