Company
Tokyo-based financial conglomerate operating brokerage, banking, insurance and asset-management units, with investments in crypto and blockchain ventures.
KB Kookmin Card and SBI Holdings signed an MOU with two security firms to test AI-agent identity checks and study stablecoin spending by Japanese tourists. The agent tests come with a sequence and a product; the stablecoin side is a study list.
Reality
XRP Asia, backed by Ripple and the XRP Ledger Foundation, launched in Singapore on Oct. 3 to connect Asia-Pacific XRPL builders with grants and partners. The grants it points to are Ripple's older programs, and the best documented of them offered up to $200,000 per Japanese project starting in June 2025.
Reality
SBI Holdings closed its 46.7 billion yen purchase of Bitbank on October 1, becoming Japan's largest crypto exchange group by assets held for customers. The price, about 8 yen per 100 yen of client crypto, is a bet on scale as Japan brings crypto under securities law.
Reality
Kaiko's $110m was more than three-fifths of everything disclosed in crypto venture funding in the week to September 18. It came from the index provider whose crypto products already carry Kaiko's reference rates.
Reality
SBI Holdings has put capital into Dtcpay through two Singapore vehicles it manages, taking the payment company's completed Series A to $25 million and adding a Japanese incumbent to a licensed stablecoin cap table.
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SBI Digital Practice sent a yen-linked test token to Kyobo Life and it arrived as a won-linked one, with no dollar in between. The run happened in a Canton test environment between two companies SBI Holdings part-owns.
Reality