SBI Holdings to form joint cryptocurrency venture with foreign firms

Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings has begun seeking foreign partners to form a joint venture in the cryptocurrency space. Reuters reports.

SBI Holdings chief executive Esitaka Kitao spoke about the company’s readiness for large-scale mergers and acquisitions. According to him, the deal is needed for SBI to maintain a leading position in the financial services sector.

“To become the number one in the world, we choose to acquire a leading company or forge an alliance with the largest ones,” Kitao said.

He added that SBI’s strategy would not resemble acquiring minority stakes in many companies. The top executive spoke of two potential deals, with no details on the partners.

“Institutional investors, mainly hedge funds, have recently started investing in cryptocurrency. Not only them, but also Elon Musk,” Kitao noted.

On February 8 it was disclosed that Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. The asset’s price began to rise sharply and in less than a week hit a new all-time high above $49,000.

Earlier in 2020 SBI Holdings bought the cryptocurrency exchange TaoTao and the platform B2C2, aimed at institutional clients.

In February 2021 SBI Holdings and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced the launch of a digital securities exchange based on blockchain technology.

Subscribe to ForkLog news on Telegram: ForkLog Feed — all the feed of news, ForkLog — the most important news and polls.