SBI Holdings, a Tokyo-based financial services conglomerate with interests spanning banking, asset management and digital assets, has announced it will acquire Bitbank, operator of one of Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, in a deal Nikkei reported at ¥46.7bn (about $290mn) that would give the combined group the largest crypto custody position in Japan by assets under management.
SBI Holdings To Buy Bitbank for Reported ¥46.7bn in Push To Dominate Japan's Crypto Market
25 June 2026 - 13:20 CEST
By Stu Clelland
SBI Holdings' wholly owned subsidiary SBICAH LLC will purchase shares from Bitbank's founder and president Noriyuki Hirosue and other individual shareholders in August. Bitbank will then buy back shares held by MIXI and Ceres by the end of October, completing the transaction and making Bitbank a wholly owned subsidiary of SBICAH. MIXI and Ceres will cease to treat Bitbank as an equity-method affiliate upon completion.
Combined custody assets
The combined custody assets of SBI VC Trade, SBI Holdings' existing crypto exchange arm, and Bitbank are estimated at ¥1.1tn (about $6.8bn), according to Nikkei. That would place the combined entity ahead of bitFlyer at approximately ¥960bn as of December 2025 and Coincheck at approximately ¥800bn as of March 2025. Combined accounts across both platforms stand at approximately 2.92mn as of April. SBI Holdings had disclosed in May that it was in discussions with Bitbank about a capital and business alliance with a view to making it a consolidated subsidiary.
Regulatory backdrop
Bitbank cited Japan's shifting regulatory environment as a factor in the deal. The company said the legal framework governing cryptocurrencies is moving from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, requiring exchanges to build more sophisticated governance and compliance infrastructure. It said joining SBI Group would allow it to leverage the group's financial services infrastructure and customer base to meet those demands and expand into stablecoins and tokenized assets.
"As a member of the SBI Group, we will leverage the group's financial functions, customer base, and management resources to further grow our digital asset-related businesses," Bitbank said in a statement.
SBI Holdings has moved aggressively to expand its crypto footprint in Japan. Earlier this week, its SBI VC Trade arm listed Ripple's RLUSD dollar stablecoin and began offering the SBI Group's newly issued JPYSC yen stablecoin. This became the first platform to open both lanes of Japan's revised Payment Services Act stablecoin framework on the same day.
