Japanese financial conglomerate, SBI Holdings is diving deeper into digital currencies with the latest acquisition of local crypto exchange, TaoTao.
Announced on Wednesday, SBI Liquidity Market, the group’s foreign exchange and derivatives arm, has acquired a 100 percent stake in TaoTao from its previous owner. However, the terms and financials of the deal were not disclosed.
Formerly known as BitARG, YJFX, a subsidiary of Yahoo! Japan, bought a 40 percent stake in the crypto exchange in 2018. Though the companies did not reveal the monetary size of that deal, reports estimated it to be around JPY 2 billion (around $19 million).
Another Crypto Exchange in the Portfolio
TaoTao is licensed by the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and launched its digital exchange operations last year, offering trading services with a few top digital currencies.
This is the second licensed cryptocurrency exchange of SBI as the group already operates SBI VCTRADE in the Japanese market. The recent acquisition will increase SBI share in the crypto market and will also benefit its existing business with core expertise.
“In the future, we will make maximum use of the management resources such as expertise and knowledge of the SBI Group as a comprehensive financial group, and the customer base and service expertise of the crypto assets that TaoTao has cultivated so far, and the latest, safe and secure crypto assets,” SBI noted in the official press release (translated from Japanese).
The acquisition deal hit the public domain only a day after reports revealed that a partnership between TaoTao and Binance failed.
Meanwhile, the group’s retail Forex platform is also offering contracts for difference (CFD) instruments with three top virtual currencies: Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ethereum.
The Japanese group further invested $30 million to gain a minority stake in crypto liquidity provider B2C2.
