Japan’s SBI Holdings is set to significantly expand its presence in the nation’s cryptocurrency market after agreeing to acquire crypto exchange Bitbank in a deal valued at 46.7 billion yen ($288.6 million).
When the deal closes, Bitbank will become an indirectly owned subsidiary of SBI and the group will own 100 percent of its voting rights. The transaction is still subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including merger clearance from the Japan Fair Trade Commission.
The deal is expected to be concluded in October, SBI said.
The move is one of the biggest acquisitions in Japan’s crypto industry in recent years, and highlights SBI’s growing focus on digital assets as traditional financial firms seek to broaden their crypto offerings.
SBI sets eyes on crypto market dominance
SBI said in announcing the deal that the acquisition is meant to strengthen its position in Japan’s competitive cryptocurrency market by combining Bitbank’s strengths with its existing digital asset operations.
The two companies will combine their respective customer bases, technology capabilities, compliance frameworks, security systems and management resources. The bank’s plan to merge the two operations is meant to both expand its crypto trading services and speed up the development of new products related to stablecoins and other digital assets.
The combined business would be enormous in size.
SBI said that combining Bitbank’s numbers with those of its existing crypto platform, SBI VC Trade, would lead to customer crypto assets of about 1.1 trillion yen ($6.8 billion) based on figures as of April 2026. The combined operation would also support some 2.92 million cryptocurrency accounts.
SBI would rank among the top players in Japan’s digital asset market with such figures.
“This would place us in first place among domestic cryptocurrency exchange operators in terms of assets under management and among the top in terms of the number of accounts,” the company said.
The acquisition also brings one of Japan’s most established crypto exchanges under SBI’s umbrella.
Founded in 2014, Bitbank has grown into one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms. The exchange has built a reputation around security and operational stability, noting that it has not experienced a successful hacking incident since launching more than a decade ago.
That track record is particularly important in Japan, where regulators and investors remain highly focused on security following several major crypto exchange breaches in previous years.
Bitbank deal strengthens SBI’s broader digital asset expansion strategy
SBI’s acquisition is part of an overarching plan of constructing a full-fledged digital assets ecosystem for the firm. SBI has had dealings in many aspects of the crypto business world, ranging from trading services, to blockchain investments, to tokenization, and collaborations with international digital asset firms.
SBI’s move is particularly timely in light of rising interest in the financial sector about stable coins and tokenized financial products. This suggests that by broadening its client and infrastructural reach through the acquisition of Bitbank, SBI is preparing itself for future success in these domains.
The purchase was hinted at back in May when SBI said that talks were ongoing between both entities. Thursday’s news confirms that these talks have now concluded successfully in the form of an agreement.
Should the deal go through, the acquisition would be a big step towards further consolidation of the cryptocurrency industry in Japan as bigger financial players seek to swallow smaller crypto companies in order to enhance their standing in the changing digital assets market environment.
