Japanese financial conglomerate, SBI Holdings has fully acquired cryptocurrency market maker and liquidity provider, B2C2, which is the latest example of how mainstream giants and crypto startups are tying up.
The takeover comes barely five months after a unit of SBI Holdings bought a minority stake in B2C2 for $30 million. The deal allows B2C2 to grow its team to 70 people, up from 50, and also involves the move of their staff in Japan into the SBI’s offices.
B2C2 is one of the largest OTC brokers/market makers in the crypto space and provides related liquidity services. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in London, the privately held company advertises its offering as a solution that bridges the gap between traditional financial and cryptocurrency markets.
B2C2's offering allows clients to take positions in the underlying OTC markets with a greater focus on offering a similar experience to trading on traditional FX platforms. With the new solution rollout, B2C2’s clients can view and execute their trades on a real-time two-way market through a point-and-click interface and also monitor live pricing in defined quantities.
Yoshitaka Kitao, President and CEO of SBI Holdings, said: “B2C2 has an exceptional reputation for its world-class products and services, superb technology and valuable client base. Their vision, expertise and offering complement SBI’s, and we look forward to working in partnership as we expand our footprint across the global markets.”
“With Bitcoin hitting an all time high this month, it is dawning on everyone in finance that crypto is here to stay. The timing could not be better for SBI, a financial conglomerate admired for its farsightedness, who is not simply dipping in but opening a new chapter for the industry. The integration is well underway, with both firms’ client bases already benefiting from our combined capabilities. We share a bold vision of the influence that crypto will exert on financial markets over the coming decade. We are proud to join SBI at the forefront of this evolution,” added B2C2 Founder, Max Boonen.
Mutual Benefits and Integration Potentials
SBI already uses B2C2’s liquidity to support its clients trading cryptocurrencies while B2C2 reportedly plans to tap SBI’s resources to support a full prime brokerage service for both crypto and other asset classes.
This brings further trading and portfolio management functionality to the London-based cryptocurrency liquidity provider’s customer base, with the possibility for further integrations in the future.
Moreover, other subsidiaries at SBI groups are active in other Blockchain projects. Apart from its Japanese security token offering (STO), for example, SBI additionally invested in San Francisco-based STO startup, Securitize, and enterprise blockchain firm, R3. Also, SBI maintains investments in Ripple and the MoneyTap blockchain Payments app.
Furthermore, SBI Securities has signed partnerships with a list of prominent players in the blockchain industry as it seeks to capture a portion of a huge market class that is waiting to be tokenized.
