SBI Group Consolidates Coinhako Stake in Push for Pan-Asian Digital Asset Corridor

SBI Group, Japan’s largest online securities firm by user base, has acquired a majority stake in Singapore-based crypto platform Coinhako, which holds a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The move is one of several rapid-fire deals through which SBI is attempting to assemble a vertically integrated digital asset operation spanning issuance, settlement, trading, asset management, and retail distribution across multiple Asian jurisdictions.

The strategic architecture rests on two new partnerships announced this week. SBI has teamed up with Ondo Finance to tokenise Japanese equities and other real-world assets, using its yen-denominated stablecoin JPYSC as the settlement layer. Separately, the Solana Foundation will take an equity stake in SBI R3 Japan, which is to be renamed SBI Solana Global; the renamed entity will focus on stablecoin issuance and the tokenisation of assets such as corporate bonds and real estate. SBI has also agreed to acquire Tokyo crypto exchange Bitbank for approximately 289 million dollars, a deal expected to close in October subject to regulatory approval, and has made investments in EDX Markets and Gauntlet.

A meaningful constraint sits at the centre of the yen settlement ambition: JPYSC currently cannot be moved to external wallets or used to settle transactions across public blockchains, limiting its utility to accounts held within SBI VC Trade. That restriction keeps the stablecoin’s network effect contained for now, and the timeline for lifting it has not been disclosed. Observers from Areta, a crypto investment banking firm, characterise on-chain yen settlement as one of the most strategically significant positions in Asian finance over the coming decade, suggesting that the current technical limitation is a watch item rather than a terminal constraint.