SBI Holdings Acquires Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitbank for $295 Million

SBI Holdings has completed its acquisition of Bitbank, a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, for $295 million. The acquisition was announced in June and followed a multi-step process involving a share transfer, capital increase, and Bitbank's repurchase of shares from MIXI and Ceres.

Under the new management structure, SBI VC Trade CEO Tomohiko Kondo has joined Bitbank's board, while Noriyuki Hirosue remains president and CEO of Bitbank. The ownership change will not affect existing exchange services or customer access.

Bitbank has been developing products beyond conventional spot trading, including the EPOS Crypto Card, which allows users to pay bills directly using Bitcoin held on the platform. The exchange has also clarified that it has no affiliation with an Iranian digital asset exchange named Bitbank, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control in September.

The acquisition comes as SBI Holdings expands its activity across several areas of digital finance, including the development of an onchain financial market originating in Japan. The partnership, formed in July, covers yen-denominated stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, cross-border payments, and onchain financial services for institutional investors.