SBI Holdings and Startale Target $19 Trillion RWA Market with New Layer 1 Blockchain ‘Strium’
Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings and Web3 infrastructure firm Startale Group have formally unveiled "Strium," a joint venture aimed at establishing a dominant blockchain infrastructure for the Asian capital markets.
The project represents the first major deliverable from the strategic partnership the two entities formed in August 2025. Strium is being positioned as an institution-grade Layer 1 blockchain specifically architected for the trading and settlement of tokenized securities and Real-World Assets (RWAs).
Bridging TradFi and DeFi
According to the companies, Strium aims to capture a share of the projected $18.9 trillion tokenized asset market by addressing the limitations of current market structures. Unlike crypto-native platforms that focus primarily on digital asset perpetuals, Strium is designed to support 24/7 spot and derivatives trading for traditional equities and RWA-linked instruments.
The platform’s architecture prioritizes high-speed market formation and deep liquidity without the constraints of traditional banking hours or legacy custody requirements. In a forward-looking technical move, the developers stated that the infrastructure is also designed to support participation by AI agents, allowing automated systems to interact directly with on-chain liquidity.
Leveraging Institutional Scale
The venture plans to capitalize on SBI Holdings’ significant footprint in the traditional financial sector. By integrating with SBI’s ecosystem of over 80 million customers across securities, banking, and insurance, Strium seeks to solve a common hurdle in the RWA sector: bridging the gap between professional trading activity and on-chain market participation.
Status and Roadmap
The companies confirmed that a Proof of Concept (PoC) has already been developed to validate the platform's settlement efficiency, resilience under high transaction loads, and interoperability with existing financial systems.
While a specific date for commercial deployment was not disclosed, Startale and SBI indicated that an upcoming testnet will soon allow early participants to access the network. The companies emphasized a "deliberate approach" to development, prioritizing regulatory engagement and robust infrastructure over a rushed launch.
Norbert Gehrke
