SBI Holdings Unveils Sweeping Strategy for Tokenization and Stablecoins
What a day in Osaka on Friday! In a series of coordinated announcements SBI Holdings unveiled a multi-faceted strategy to build and dominate the next generation of digital finance. Through landmark partnerships with global crypto leaders Startale Group, Ripple, and Circle, as well as Japanese financial titan Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), SBI is laying the groundwork for an all-encompassing ecosystem for tokenized assets and stablecoins.
The day's news reveals a clear and ambitious vision: to create the core infrastructure for a future where traditional and decentralized finance converge, enabling 24/7, global, and programmable value streams.
1. The Future of Trading: A Groundbreaking Partnership with Startale Group
Headlining the day's news, SBI Holdings has announced a strategic joint venture with Singapore-based crypto infrastructure leader Startale Group. The collaboration aims to develop and launch a comprehensive on-chain trading platform focused on tokenized stocks and real-world assets (RWAs).
This initiative positions the alliance to capture a significant share of the projected $18.9 trillion tokenized asset market. The platform is being engineered to overcome the limitations of current financial markets, which remain closed approximately 70% of the time.
Key features of the new platform will include:
- True 24/7 Trading: Enabling continuous trading of tokenized stocks and other financial assets without market closure limitations.
- Near-Instant Cross-Border Settlement: Drastically reducing the long settlement cycles common in traditional finance.
- Fractional Ownership: Making high-value assets like blue-chip stocks accessible to a broader range of retail investors.
- DeFi Composability: Creating new financial products by integrating trusted traditional equities with the programmable and accessible nature of DeFi protocols.
"This isn't just about digitizing existing assets," said Sota Watanabe, Founder of Startale Group. "It's about creating entirely new financial primitives that merge the trust of traditional equities with the composability and accessibility of DeFi."
Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of SBI Holdings, added, "By capturing this trend and by leveraging our corporate ecosystem together with Startale's blockchain technology, we have great expectations for creating a new decentralized platform... highly interoperable, always open, accessible to anyone."
2. Powering the New Economy: A Multi-Pronged Stablecoin Strategy
Underpinning the vision for a tokenized future is the need for reliable, regulated digital cash. SBI revealed a comprehensive, three-part strategy to ensure the availability and circulation of best-in-class stablecoins in Japan, targeting both USD and JPY currencies.
A) Joint Venture with Circle to Champion USDC in Japan
SBI Holdings and Circle Internet Holdings, the issuer of USDC, are establishing a formal joint venture to promote the circulation of USDC and develop new Web3 use cases in Japan. This move formalizes a relationship that began with a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2023. SBI VC Trade, an SBI subsidiary, has already become the first company in Japan registered to handle electronic payment instruments like USDC. The partnership is further solidified by a $50 million strategic investment from SBI Group into Circle.
B) Distributing Ripple’s RLUSD through SBI VC Trade
In a separate agreement, SBI Group has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ripple to become a key distribution partner for its new USD-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, in Japan. Leveraging its Electronic Payment Instrument Services Provider License, SBI VC Trade aims to make RLUSD available to the Japanese market within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026. This partnership focuses on providing a trusted, enterprise-grade stablecoin backed by high-quality reserves, aiming to set a new benchmark for stablecoin utility in Japan.
C) Collaboration with SMBC for a Japanese Yen Stablecoin
To address the domestic market, SBI VC Trade has entered into a basic agreement with one of Japan's largest megabanks, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). The two financial giants will jointly explore the "sound distribution and utilization" of a JPY-backed stablecoin issued by SMBC. The collaboration will focus on developing a robust and secure distribution model, enhancing B2B transaction networks, and creating new, user-friendly payment and asset management services built on stablecoin technology.
3. The Proving Ground: "Project Trinity" to Revolutionize Securities Settlement
Connecting the vision for tokenized assets with the stablecoin strategy is "Project Trinity," a major proof-of-concept initiative to modernize Japan's security token market.
An impressive consortium of eight leading financial and technology firms—including SMBC, Daiwa Securities, SBI Securities, Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX), SBI R3 Japan, BOOSTRY, Progmat, and Datachain—has officially launched the project.
The goal is to use stablecoins to enable Delivery Versus Payment (DvP) settlement for security token trades on the secondary market. Currently, the exchange of a security token and its payment happen separately, creating counterparty risk. Project Trinity aims to eliminate this risk by using smart contracts to ensure the instantaneous and simultaneous exchange of the token and a stablecoin payment.
Initially, the project will focus on achieving a T+2 DvP settlement cycle. However, the long-term vision is to enable real-time, 24/365 gross settlement, a future where transactions are settled instantly, one by one, on the blockchain. This aligns perfectly with the 24/7 trading platform SBI is building with Startale, demonstrating how these initiatives are designed to function as parts of a cohesive whole.
Conclusion: Building the Future, Today
The sheer scale and scope of the announcements made by SBI Holdings on August 22, 2025, cannot be overstated. This is not a tentative step into the world of digital assets, but a full-scale strategic execution to build the foundational pillars of Japan's future financial market infrastructure. By partnering with the best in both the traditional and decentralized worlds, SBI is positioning itself—and Japan—at the absolute forefront of the global convergence of finance and blockchain technology. The message is clear: the future of finance is tokenized, on-chain, and it's being built now.
Norbert Gehrke
