SBI Holdings Completes $295M Bitbank Acquisition in Japan

Principales conclusiones

• SBI Holdings completed its acquisition of Bitbank on Oct. 1, making the Japanese crypto exchange a wholly owned subsidiary.
• SBI VC Trade CEO Tomohiko Kondo joined Bitbank’s board under the new management structure.
• Bitbank said the ownership change will not affect existing exchange services or customer access.

SBI Holdings completed its acquisition of Bitbank on Oct. 1, bringing the Japanese crypto exchange fully under the financial group.

The transaction followed agreements anunció in June and a multi-step process involving a share transfer, capital increase and Bitbank’s repurchase of shares from MIXI and Ceres.

SBI previously placed the total acquisition cost at ¥46.7 billion, or roughly $295 million at recent exchange rates. Bitbank said the ownership change will not affect existing customer services.

Bitbank Enters a Fully Integrated SBI Structure

The completed transaction changes who controls Bitbank, but not the exchange customers use.

Bitbank said the acquisition has “no impact” on its existing service. Customers can continue using the platform as before.

Noriyuki Hirosue remains president and CEO of Bitbank under the new management structure.

The more visible change is in the boardroom. Tomohiko Kondo, president and CEO of SBI VC Trade, has joined Bitbank as a director.

Hirosue is also set to become an outside director of SBI VC Trade, creating a direct management link between the two crypto businesses within the SBI group.

Bitbank said customers can continue using the exchange as they did before the transaction. Hirosue remains at the helm, while Kondo’s appointment places an SBI crypto executive directly on the Bitbank board.

SBI Is Building More Than an Exchange Network

The Bitbank transaction comes as SBI expands its activity across several areas of digital finance.

In July, SBI Holdings formed a strategic partnership with the Solana Foundation and SBI R3 Japan to develop an onchain financial market originating in Japan.

The initiative covers yen-denominated stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, cross-border payments and onchain financial services for institutional investors.

The partnership is separate from Bitbank, but it provides useful context for the direction of SBI’s digital-asset business.

The group is working across exchanges, blockchain infrastructure and financial products rather than relying on a single crypto platform.

Bitbank has also been developing products beyond conventional spot trading. In April, The Coin Republic reported that the exchange launched the EPOS Crypto Card for Bitbank.

The EPOS Card allows users to pay bills directly using Bitcoin held on the platform. The report said the Visa-based card offered 0.5% cashback in BTC, Ether or Aster.

Bitbank’s Name Created a Separate Problem in September

The takeover also follows an episode unrelated to SBI or the Japanese exchange.

On September 17, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned an Iranian digital asset exchange named BitBank. The Treasury accused it of helping move cryptocurrency linked to Iran’s financial networks.

Treasury identified the Iranian entity as part of a sanctions-evasion network connected to financier Babak Zanjani.

Japan’s Bitbank quickly clarified that the sanctioned exchange was an entirely separate company.

In a September 18 statement, Bitbank Inc. said it had no capital, business or other affiliation with the Iranian BitBank and was not subject to the U.S. sanctions.

The distinction matters. Both companies use nearly identical names, but they are separate entities operating in different jurisdictions.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

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