SBI Holdings, also known as Strategic Business Innovator Group, is one of Japan’s largest financial services companies as well as operating a successful business school and a children’s charity. In a world-first it was announced today that SBI’s long awaited cryptocurrency exchange is finally to be launched, marking the first ever instance of a bank owned and operated crypto exchange. Subsidiary SBI Virtual Currencies will operate the exchange, dubbed “VCTRADE”.
The exchange has been in development for a number of years, with an initial announcement in 2016 leading to a soft launch for some 20,000 pre-registered users in June of this year. SBI successfully completed their licensing and registration with Japanese regulators earlier in 2018 but say they have been awaiting a further tightening of security measures before going live. A number of exchanges in both Japan and South Korea succumbed to high-level hacks during 2018 and doubtless SBI were keen to avoid such breaches. The VCTRADE exchange is now live for retail investors, with institutional and corporate provision coming further down the line.
Interestingly the exchange is initially offering only XRP trading, favouring Ripple’s controversial token rather than Bitcoin (BTC) as base trading currency. SBI has an established affiliation with Ripple, and the two have worked closely on developing blockchain technology in Japanese and Asian markets. This project therefore represents a logical progression of the partnership. Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) trading will, however, be offered on the VCTRADE platform soon.
