joint venture
Zodia Custody, the institutional digital asset custodian backed by Standard Chartered, and Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings have mutually agreed to terminate their much-anticipated joint venture, "SBI Zodia Custody," nearly two years after its inception. The venture, which aimed to provide bank-grade crypto-asset custody for institutions in Japan,
crypto
Over the past week, there were two additional announcements regarding SBI Group's strategic expansion within the Japanese cryptocurrency market. These key developments include a new partnership between SBI VC Trade and Convano for large-scale Bitcoin operations and SBI FX Trade's launch of crypto CFDs, underpinned by
regulation
The second meeting of the Financial System Council's Working Group on Crypto Assets, held on September 2, 2025, highlights a significant push in Japan towards strengthening crypto asset regulation, primarily by considering a shift from the Payment Services Act (PSA) to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA)
cryptocurrency exchange
Coincheck Group, the holding company of Coincheck, one of Japan’s leading crypto asset exchanges, has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire Aplo, a digital asset prime brokerage for institutional crypto investors. Pursuant to the agreement, all issued and outstanding shares of Aplo are to be exchanged for
crypto
gumi has resolved, at the Board of Directors meeting held on August 28, 2025, to purchase 2.5 billion yen worth of crypto assets (XRP). The purchase(s) will be carried out between September 2025 and February 2026. gumi will conduct a quarterly mark-to-market valuation of its held crypto assets,
web3
A focused finance session in Osaka followed by two main conference days in Tokyo—this was my firsthand experience at WebX 2025. I have combined on-site observations, in-depth conversations, trend insights, and policy interpretations to offer those who could not attend a more vivid and complete sense of being there—
digital assets
SBI Group and Chainlink, the industry-standard oracle platform, have announced a strategic partnership focused on accelerating blockchain and digital asset adoption across global markets. Japan's sophisticated financial market and rapidly evolving digital asset ecosystem provide an ideal environment to launch and validate initial use cases. This strategic collaboration
crypto
Splendid experience to moderate the panel on Crypto ETFs at the WebX FinTech Expo in Osaka on Friday, sharing the stage with Takashi Takamura, Country Head at Franklin Templeton Japan, Tomoya Asakura, Chief Executive Officer at SBI Global Asset Management, and Eugene Cheung, Chief Commercial Officer at OSL, covering the
venture capital
DigiFT, a licensed exchange purpose-built for institutional-grade, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), has raised a total of US$25 million to date—following the close of a new strategic funding round. The latest round was led by SBI Holdings, Japan’s largest financial group, with participation from leading institutional investors including
venture capital
Mesh, the leading crypto payments network, today announced additional investments from PayPal Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Uphold, Mirana Ventures (venture partner for ByBit), SBI Investment, Overlook Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Moderne Ventures and CE-Ventures, bringing total capital funding to more than $130 million. This support positions the company to accelerate its impact
crypto
Just like for this fiscal year (see link at the bottom), the Japan Cryptoasset Business Association (JCBA), jointly with the Japan Virtual and Crypto assets Exchange Association (JVCEA), has compiled a tax reform request for cryptoassets for FY2026 and submitted it to the government. Purpose of This Request Web3.0
credit card