SBI To Buy Bitbank For $289M As Japan Crypto Exchange Market Consolidates

SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank for ¥46.7 billion, or about $289 million, in a deal that will bring one of Japan’s major crypto exchanges under the financial group’s control. Bitbank is expected to become a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI through SBICAH GK after the transaction closes.

The deal follows SBI’s board approval on June 25 and includes a basic agreement with Bitbank, founder and CEO Noriyuki Hirosue, MIXI and CERES. SBI also signed a share-transfer agreement with Hirosue and other individual shareholders as part of the transaction structure.

The acquisition is still subject to Japan Fair Trade Commission review and other closing conditions. SBI plans to execute the share transfer around August, complete a capital increase around October and finish the full transaction around October.

Combined Custody Assets Could Reach ¥1.1T

SBI expects the combined group to hold about ¥1.1 trillion in crypto assets under custody, based on a simple aggregation of SBI VC Trade and Bitbank figures as of April 30. The group also expects about 2.92 million crypto asset accounts after the transaction.

That custody scale would place SBI first among domestic crypto asset exchange service providers by assets under custody, based on SBI VC Trade’s research and publicly available market materials. The group also expects to rank among Japan’s top platforms by account count.

Bitbank adds a long-running exchange business to SBI’s regulated crypto stack. The exchange was established in 2014, is led by Hirosue and has emphasized security as part of its domestic positioning. The company also recently expanded further into payments through a crypto-linked Bitbank card that settles bills in Bitcoin.

Japan’s Regulated Crypto Stack Expands

The acquisition deepens SBI’s position at a time when Japanese financial groups are moving more aggressively into digital assets. SBI already operates through SBI VC Trade and has been building across crypto trading, stablecoins and onchain finance.

Japan’s largest online brokerages have also been preparing crypto exposure for ordinary securities accounts, including SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities crypto investment fund plans. That shift points to a market where crypto access is moving closer to regulated brokerage, custody and asset-management infrastructure rather than remaining only inside standalone exchanges.

Institutional demand is also starting to broaden. A Japanese corporate pension fund recently moved toward a 1% crypto allocation in fiscal 2026, adding another regulated-market signal around how digital assets are entering portfolio infrastructure in Japan.