SBI Financial Group Acquires Japanese Crypto Exchange TaoTao

According to a press release published on Wednesday, October 7, SBI Liquidity Market, the group’s forex and derivatives arm, has purchased a 100% stake in TaoTao — making it a fully-owned subsidiary. The product of a deal between BitARG, an existing Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange, and Yahoo Japan, TaoTao initially launched in May 2019. It is one of only a few dozen crypto companies in Japan with permission from the Financial Services Agency to operate a digital exchange legally. The news of the sale broke just two days after the Japanese exchange ended partnership discussions with Binance. TaoTao had been in negotiations with Binance since January of this year, before a statement on October 5, indicated that talks had been abandoned.

Increase in Crypto Exchange Portfolio

With the acquisition of TaoTao, SBI Holdings, one of Japan’s largest financial services groups, added a second licensed cryptocurrency trading platform to its portfolio. The company already offers crypto trading services via its venture capital arm, SBI VC Trade. For its part, SBI VC Trade has been a subsidiary of SBI since July 2019. According to the press release, the group has big plans for TaoTao,

going forward; we will maximize the strengths of the SBI Group and the customer base and service know-how of crypto assets that TaoTao has cultivated so far to provide the latest, safe and secure crypto asset trading services.

The news comes after an eventful summer for the Japenese financial giant. In July, it invested $30 million to gain a minority stake in crypto liquidity provider B2C2, and in August, it announced the launch of crypto derivatives trading. The terms and financials of the TaoTao deal were not disclosed.