Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings is getting more serious about the security token offerings industry. SBI is planning to run its own STO allotting shares of SBI e-Sports, the company’s new e-sports gaming arm, Cointelegraph Japan reports Oct. 9. Announcing the news on Friday, SBI said that the upcoming STO will be conducted using ibet, a blockchain platform developed by digital security startup Boostry. Scheduled for Oct. 30, the STO will be carried out by SBI’s online securities subsidiary, SBI Securities, while SBI holdings will act as an underwriter. SBI said that the company considers STOs a “core technology of …

Japan's largest on-line financial conglomerate, SBI Holdings, now owns two licensed cryptocurrency trading platforms with its new acquisition of TaoTao exchange. According to an official announcement on Oct. 7, SBI’s foreign exchange and derivatives arm SBI Liquidity Market has acquired all shares of TaoTao, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company. Formerly 40% owned by internet giant Yahoo! Japan’s YJFX, TaoTao launched its crypto trading service in May 2019. With the new acquisition, SBI now has two crypto trading platforms as the company is already offering crypto trading services through its crypto-focused venture capital arm, SBI VC Trade. Operating …

SBI Holdings, Japanese financial giant and a major blockchain-focused institution, is reportedly planning to set up a blockchain-based digital stock exchange. Yoshitaka Kitao, president and CEO at SBI Holdings, announced the company’s plans to collaborate with Osaka Prefecture to establish a new global financial hub. The new international financial center is will purportedly be located in Osaka and Kobe, Nikkei reports on Sept. 2. SBI is planning to launch a digital stock exchange based on blockchain technology. The exchange is expected to attract global fintech companies and contribute to the development of the financial hub. Kitao emphasized that the establishment …

Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings is preparing to launch contract-for-difference, or CFD, trading for major cryptocurrencies. Starting Aug. 31, SBI Holdings will start CFD trading service for crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and XRP, Cointelegraph Japan reported on Aug. 28. As officially announced, the new service will be offered through SBI’s foreign exchange-focused arm, SBI FX Trade. The platform is accepting new account registrations immediately, the announcement notes. The new trading offering will allow SBI clients to trade crypto CFD contracts against the Japanese yen and the U.S. dollar, enabling a total of six new trading pairs. According …

The general hype circa 2018 proclaimed security tokens as crypto’s killer app. After Bitcoin fell from its $20,000 peak in December 2017, some of the more revolutionary promises of cryptocurrencies had lost their luster — especially after the subsequent collapse of the altcoin market and the mayhem of initial coin offerings. Security token offerings, or STOs, on the other hand, were billed as a more manageable, if still extreme, way of upgrading the dusty old financial systems that back equity trading. A revolution from within finance. Two years later, and that revolution in stocks and bonds has yet to happen …

Major Japanese financial services company SBI Holdings now owns a 10% stake in the digital security offering platform Boostry. The news follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Nomura Research Institute — a joint venture of Boostry’s majority-owner Nomura Holdings — and SBI. 54% of the platform is owned by Nomura Holdings, Nomura Institute holds a 34% stake, and SBI has 10%. The memorandum also establishes that the three entities will form a strategic alliance concerning the operation of Boostry. tZERO dominates security token volume The agreement between Nomura and SBI comes as the security token sector has …

SBI Financial Services, a subsidiary of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, has bought a $30 million minority stake in British crypto liquidity startup, B2C2. The investment marks the beginning of a strategic partnership between the firms as B2C2 is set to become SBI’s main liquidity provider. As announced on July 1, the collaboration is aimed to expand SBI’s crypto offering to millions of customers. B2C2 is intended to benefit from SBI’s distribution network as the London-based startup launches an electronic prime brokerage. A spokesperson at B2C2 told Cointelegraph that the investment is “one of the largest in the digital asset …

This week’s headlines from Japan included SBI announcing a digital asset investment fund, Bitflyer Holdings using blockchain for shareholder meeting voting, Japan's Financial Services Agency warning two unregistered crypto exchanges, a Japanese digital asset exchange self-regulatory group changing chairmen, and Coincheck announcing launch details for its digital shareholder meeting platform. Check out some of this week’s crypto and blockchain headlines, originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. SBI unveils a crypto investment fund As an option for individual participants, Japanese financial services entity SBI Holdings expects to form and open Japan's first digital asset fund at some point over the next few …

Asia may be the next proving ground for crypto firm Ripple to reach with its cross-border payments corridor. In a June 18 interview on the YouTube channel Thinking Crypto, Adam Traidman, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia—a subsidiary of Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings—said Ripple has started to roll out its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) solution in Asia. According to Traidman, SBI Ripple Asia has started “limited trial and pilot projects” with various companies for Ripple’s payment corridor, with greater expansion forecast for 2021. “I expect that probably later this year, and into next year, things are going to move into …

This week’s headlines from Japan included research company Xangle releasing a report on Japanese crypto regulation, Binance supporting Japan's language but not its residents, SBI Holdings turning gift certificates digital with blockchain, and Nomura Holdings opening a crypto custody service with Ledger and Coinshares. Check out some of this week’s crypto and blockchain headlines, originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. Research outfit details Japanese crypto regulation A new report surfaced last week from research outfit Xangle regarding Japanese digital asset regulation. Citing multiple examples of already-approved assets listed on exchanges, the report "analyzes the conditions necessary for listing a new virtual …

Korean Blockchain gaming company PlayDapp has launched a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), offering Korea’s multi-billion gaming industry a native gateway into digital assets. Announced on June 8, the new platform, ‘PlayDapp MarketPLAce,’ advertises itself as providing free support for coin-to-coin trading between NFT-based in-game items. Koh Kwang-Wook, a founding member and former CTO of Item Bay, an early online brokerage platform for in-game items, led the development of PlayDapp’s marketplace. Korean NFT marketplace targets gaming industry At launch, the platform supports items from Ethereum-powered collecting games CryptoDozer and DozerBird. Over the past 24 hours, the games have attracted 201 …

Speaking to Cointelegraph, the CEO of Ripple SBI Asia, Adam Traidman, predicted that the mining industry will continue to see hash rate migrate from east to west, asserting that he is already witnessing the transition begin. “We are seeing a huge interest [from][ wealthy Chinese miners who are paying somewhere on average of $0.03 to $0.05 per kilowatt-hour [...] in Texas at $0.025 and below — in some cases way below,” Traidman stated. Tensions between American and Chinese miners However, the Ripple SBI Asia head noted that relations between mining firms in Texas and China have been soured in the …