SBI Holdings Takes Majority Control of Coinhako — and That Is Just One of 3 Major Crypto Moves This Week

SBI Holdings, Japan’s largest financial conglomerate with over $200 billion in assets under management (AuM), completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Coinhako on July 16, making the Singapore-based crypto exchange a consolidated subsidiary of the group following approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

Behind SBI Holding’s Coinhako Move 

Coinhako has operated in Singapore for over a decade and built what its leadership describes as one of Southeast Asia’s most compliant crypto trading platforms. 

The exchange has a retail-focused customer base across the region, holding regulatory status in a jurisdiction that has emerged as one of Asia’s primary hubs for digital asset licensing. 

In its official release, SBI Holdings stated that the acquisition gives it a regulated crypto exchange footprint in Southeast Asia, complementing its existing operations in Japan.

Coinhako Co-Founder and CEO Yusho Liu described the acquisition as the natural next step after a decade of building in one of the world’s most demanding regulatory environments. “Our challenge has only just begun,” he said. 

Coinhako, Southeast Asia’s Pioneer Crypto Exchange, Joins SBI Group — A New Chapter for Asia’s Digital Asset Ecosystem

“Joining SBI Group is the natural next chapter for Coinhako. Over the past decade, we built one of Southeast Asia’s most trusted and compliant digital asset… pic.twitter.com/uvs2lmF7P3

— Coinhako (@coinhako) July 17, 2026

SBI Holdings chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao framed the deal in terms of a broader ambition — building what he called a “global corridor” for digital assets that allows investors to move across national borders and currency barriers. 

Singapore, he said, is central to that vision given how far ahead it is on digital asset regulation relative to most other jurisdictions in the region. However, the Coinhako acquisition is not the only move SBI Holdings made this week. 

Ondo Finance and Solana Were Next 

As the deal closed, SBI Holdings announced a strategic partnership with Ondo Finance (ONDO) — one of the industry’s leading tokenization firms— to bring Japanese equities on-chain and connect Japan’s capital markets to the broader tokenized economy. Ian De Bode, Ondo Finance’s CEO, said:

Japan is one of the most sophisticated capital markets in the world, and SBI sits at the center of it. This collaboration creates a path to bring Japanese assets on-chain and to connect Japan with the global tokenized economy.  

Separately, SBI Holdings and the Solana Foundation disclosed a partnership on July 13 to build an on-chain financial market infrastructure from Japan, a collaboration both organizations described as a significant step for digital finance not just domestically but globally.

As previously reported, Japan passed a major amendment to its Financial Instruments and Exchange Act this week, reclassifying crypto assets as financial instruments. 

This approach places digital assets under the same regulatory framework as stocks and bonds for the first time and opens the door for crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the country as early as 2027. 

Featured image generated with OpenArt.