SBI Securities’ trading revenue surged 19.2% in 2019, largely due to the inclusion of the company’s crypto investment wing, which turned a $7.1 million loss into a $30 million profit over the year. Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings released its new financial report on Oct. 30. The report analyzed results for the six-month period ended Sept. 30, 2019 and witnessed major growth of SBI’s crypto-heavy venture capital arm in 2019 amid a general decline in SBI’s revenue. SBI VC Trade profits grow over $30 million over a year According to the report, SBI VC Trade’s profit before income tax …

In this week’s selected cryptocurrency- and blockchain-related news from Cointelegraph Japan, cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Japan receives a $4.6 million investment, Bitcoin.com acquires blockchain startup O3 Labs, and Ripple CEO Garlinghouse criticizes the Softbank Group. Here is the past week of cryptocurrency and blockchain news in review, as originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. Crypto exchange Huobi Japan secures $4.6 million investment by FPG AIM Huobi Japan announced on Oct. 25 that it has raised close to $4.6 million through a third-party capital raise led by FPG AIM, a Japan-based financial services company. FPG aims to expand its business in the financial …

The cryptocurrency- and blockchain-friendly country of Japan has seen a number of significant developments for the industries this past week. A self-regulatory organization has introduced guidance for cryptocurrency custodians, while a subsidiary of major financial services firm SBI Holdings will conduct compliance policies using blockchain technology. Here is the past week of crypto and blockchain news in review, as originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan. Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association releases guidelines on custody The Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association (JCBA) — a self-regulatory organization for the cryptocurrency industry in Japan — has released guidance for cryptocurrency custody operators. The JCBA issued guidelines …

Security token offerings, or STOs, have more or less taken the mantle from their semi-defunct counterpart, the initial coin offering (ICO). Still, the extreme rise and subsequent fall of the ICO has left quite an impression on the cryptocurrency industry. At its peak prevalence in 2017, this novel fundraising prototype accumulated a total of $6.2 billion — but it wasn’t set to last. Come December of the same year, ICOs had become a shadow of their former selves, plummeting in demand. So far, a mere $366 million has been raised via ICOs in 2019, a retrace of 94% from their …

Six major Japanese brokerage firms such as SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities officially established Japan Security Token Offering (STO) Association. The four other members of the new association include Nomura Securities, Daiwa Securities, Kabu.com Securities and Japan’s financial giant Monex, who officially announced the news on Oct. 1. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan STO Association launches in order to support the development of STO fundraising by consolidating expertise in the industry, ensuring compliance with laws and protecting investors. Development of self-regulations Chaired by Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO and representative director of SBI Holdings and an exec at Ripple Labs, the general incorporated …

On Aug. 29, MorningStar Japan, a subsidiary of financial services giant SBI Holdings, announced that it will offer its shareholders dividends in the form of XRP tokens. According to the statement, the Japanese company will offer 30 XRP to its shareholders if they hold a minimum of 100 shares by Sept. 30. Shareholders will receive 30 XRP It is noted that shareholders who are eligible to receive 30 coins of the world’s third largest cryptocurrency by its market capitalization will have to open an account with cryptocurrency exchange SBI VC Trade. At press time, 30 XRP are worth around $7.50, …

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange VC Trade has integrated an anti-money laundering (AML) compliance technology developed by Taiwanese digital currency hardware wallet company CoolBitX. As Japanese finance-focused news outlet Blocktempo reported on Aug. 8, VC Trade — a crypto exchange founded by Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings last June — has adopted CoolBitX’s Sygna, a know-your customer (KYC) and AML compliance technology focused on digital currency transactions. CoolBitX’s founder and CEO Michael Ou ostensibly explained that the Sygna system allows users to withdraw assets to their wallets through a KYC multi-level checkpoint. If one of the parties participating in the transaction is …

SBI Ripple Asia — a subsidiary of Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings — is launching a store settlement service affiliated with SBI Holdings and Ripple’s jointly developed consumer-focused XRP-powered payments app MoneyTap. The news was reported by Cointelegraph Japan on May 30. As previously reported, MoneyTap — which launched in the fall of last year — implements Ripple’s blockchain solution xCurrent to enable near-instant domestic bank-to-bank remittance services. The new store settlement service reportedly intends to pave the way for the roll out of full-scale in-store payment services using MoneyTap by the end of the year. Its first trial …

Japan has been a land of firsts when it comes to crypto, even if "Satoshi Nakamoto" isn't really Japanese. It's the country where Mt. Gox — the first major crypto exchange — was based, as well as the first nation to accept bitcoin as legal tender. And last July, it became the first country to host a bank-owned cryptocurrency exchange, when financial services giant SBI Holdings launched the SBI Virtual Currencies (SBIVC) platform. At the time of its launch, SBIVC — called VCTRADE at the time — enabled trades in only XRP, bitcoin (BTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH). Yet, as …

Disclaimer. This article has been updated to include comments from Yoshitaka Kitao during the financial results conference call. Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO and representative director of Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings, has been appointed as an executive of Ripple Labs Inc., Cointelegraph Japan reports on April 26. As previously reported, SBI Holdings is an active partner of Ripple via their joint venture, “SBI Ripple Asia,” which was established to promote the use of XRP in Asian financial markets back in 2016. SBI’s official announcement states that Kitao’s appointment to his new executive role at Ripple Labs will aim to “further …

Technology company FPT Corporation and financial services firm SBI Holdings Inc have jointly invested $3 million in Vietnamese blockchain startup Utop, local English language daily news outlet Viet Nam News reported on April 19. FPT Corporation and SBI Holdings Inc have reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to invest $3 million in joint venture Utop, a technology startup based on FPT’s enterprise blockchain platform dubbed akaChain. Utop is designed to gain and redeem loyalty points at merchants within the same network. The project will purportedly enable small businesses registered on the network to reduce costs and secure data through …

Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings says the removal of bitcoin cash (BCH) from its exchange this week was not a result of the other deslistings involving bitcoin SV (BSV), Cointelegraph Japan reported April 19. SBI, which has never offered BSV trading, sparked controversy when executives moved to delist BCH, as it was BSV which had become the target of a cross-industry boycott. As Cointelegraph reported, multiple major exchanges have announced they will stop supporting BSV due to the legal threats made by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, its major proponents. The altcoin is a hard fork of BCH, which …