SBI Holdings completes the ¥46.7B ($289M) acquisition of crypto exchange Bitbank

SBI Holdings has completed its acquisition of Bitbank, making the Tokyo crypto exchange a wholly owned subsidiary on 1 October. The deal, announced on 25 June, is valued at about ¥46.7 billion, roughly $289 million.

The transaction ran in three steps through SBICAH GK, a wholly owned SBI unit: it bought shares from Bitbank founder and CEO Noriyuki Hirosue and other individual holders, subscribed to a new share issue by Bitbank, and Bitbank used that cash to buy back and retire every share held by its corporate shareholders MIXI and Ceres.

Founded in 2014, Bitbank is one of Japan's longest-running exchanges, with spot trading and lending across more than 40 assets paired with the yen. Combined with SBI VC Trade, the group expects about ¥1.1 trillion in custody assets and 2.92 million crypto accounts, which SBI says makes it the largest domestic exchange business by asset value.

Tomohiko Kondo, president of SBI VC Trade, joins Bitbank's board, while Hirosue becomes an outside director of SBI VC Trade. Bitbank's services continue unchanged.