SBI Holdings Completes Full Acquisition of Bitbank, Japan’s Crypto Exchange

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• SBI Holdings announced on October 1, 2026 that it has completed Bitbank’s acquisition of treasury shares from MIXI and Ceres, finalizing Bitbank’s status as SBI’s wholly owned subsidiary
• Tomohiko Kondo, representative director and president of SBI VC Trade, has joined Bitbank’s board of directors as part of the new management structure
• Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirosue has taken on the role of outside director at SBI VC Trade, deepening ties between the two SBI-affiliated exchanges

Bitbank announced in an official release dated October 1, 2026 that it has completed its transition into a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings, following Bitbank’s acquisition of treasury shares previously held by MIXI and Ceres.

The completion of the share acquisition finalizes a deal that brings one of Japan’s established cryptocurrency exchanges fully under the SBI Group umbrella, adding to SBI’s already substantial presence across Japanese digital asset services, banking, and securities. The release confirms the transaction closed without disrupting service for Bitbank’s existing customers, stating plainly that users can continue using the exchange’s services exactly as before.

Alongside the ownership change, Bitbank disclosed a new management structure linking it more closely with SBI VC Trade, another SBI-affiliated digital asset exchange. Tomohiko Kondo, representative director and president of SBI VC Trade, has joined Bitbank’s board of directors, while Bitbank’s own chief executive, Noriyuki Hirosue, has taken on the role of outside director at SBI VC Trade. The cross-appointments give the two exchanges overlapping leadership even as they continue to operate as separate platforms.

SBI said it intends to draw on the broader SBI Group’s financial capabilities, existing customer base, and management resources to advance Bitbank’s digital asset-related operations going forward, a strategy consistent with how SBI has folded other financial services acquisitions into its ecosystem of banking, brokerage, and crypto businesses over the past several years.

The deal strengthens SBI’s position in Japan’s crypto exchange market at a moment when Japanese regulators have been steadily building out a more defined licensing and oversight framework for digital asset businesses. Bringing Bitbank fully in-house gives SBI tighter control over how the exchange evolves its product offerings and compliance posture, while the leadership overlap with SBI VC Trade suggests the group intends to coordinate strategy across its crypto exchange holdings rather than run them as entirely independent operations.

Japan has built one of the world’s more detailed regulatory regimes for crypto exchanges, requiring operators to register with the Financial Services Agency and meet strict custody and disclosure standards. A large, diversified financial group like SBI absorbing an established exchange such as Bitbank fits a broader consolidation trend in the market, where scale and compliance infrastructure increasingly determine which platforms can keep growing and which get folded into larger competitors instead.