SBI signed a ¥46.7 billion plan to take full control of Bitbank

SBI Holdings on June 25, 2026 said it had signed agreements designed to make Japanese crypto exchange Bitbank a wholly owned subsidiary through SBI’s SBICAH unit. SBI put the total acquisition cost at ¥46.7 billion, including both the share purchase and a planned capital injection.

The announcement established a defined transaction, but it did not mark a completed acquisition. SBI said closing remained subject to Japan Fair Trade Commission merger clearance and other conditions. That distinction mattered: the June 25 record established signed agreements and a proposed structure, not transferred ownership or regulatory approval.

How the transaction was designed

Under SBI’s plan, SBICAH would first buy 53,704 Bitbank shares from founder and chief executive Noriyuki Hirosue and other individual holders. SBICAH would then subscribe for 48,952 newly issued shares in a third-party allotment. Those two steps would leave the SBI unit with 102,656 shares and 68.76% of voting rights.

Bitbank would use the capital-increase proceeds to repurchase all shares held by MIXI and Ceres. After those repurchases and the other related steps, SBI expected its indirect voting-rights share, excluding treasury stock, to reach 100%.

The timing remained prospective. SBI scheduled the initial share transfer for around August 2026, the capital increase and Bitbank repurchases for around October 2026, and completion for around October 2026. Bitbank separately said its exchange service would continue operating as before. None of those later steps was complete on June 25.

A seller’s disclosure corroborated the structure. Ceres said it had approved a memorandum covering the sale of all 21,480 Bitbank shares it owned, representing 22.39% of voting rights, through Bitbank’s repurchase. Ceres estimated its proceeds at approximately ¥8.6 billion. These were company estimates attached to a conditional transaction, not cash already received.

Why the deal mattered

The proposed combination would join Bitbank with SBI’s existing domestic crypto business, centered on SBI VC Trade, inside a broad financial-services group. SBI said the combined operations would have approximately ¥1.1 trillion in assets under custody and approximately 2.92 million crypto-asset accounts.

Those scale figures require careful limits. They were SBI’s simple aggregation of SBI VC Trade and Bitbank data as of April 30, 2026, not audited consolidated results for a completed group. SBI’s claim that the combination would rank first among Japanese crypto-asset exchange providers by assets under custody was based on SBI VC Trade research using public materials and estimates. It was an attributable competitive claim, not an independently verified market census.

Even with that caveat, the transaction was a significant consolidation signal. A financial conglomerate was committing substantial yen consideration to bring a domestic crypto venue fully inside its group, while explicitly citing trading services, stablecoins and on-chain finance as areas for expansion. The structure also shifted Bitbank away from a shareholder base led by its founder, MIXI and Ceres toward single-group control.

What the record did not establish

The June 25 documents did not prove future customer growth, lower costs, new product approvals or successful integration. SBI’s statements about synergies, market position and new digital-asset services were management expectations.

The verified development was narrower and still consequential: SBI and the relevant Bitbank stakeholders signed agreements creating a ¥46.7 billion path to full ownership, with antitrust review and multiple transaction steps still ahead.