Germany’s Boerse Stuttgart Group and Japan’s SBI Holdings independently announced on Friday their partnership to expand both companies’ crypto businesses.
The former operates the second-largest stock exchange in Germany while the latter is one of the largest Japanese financial services groups.
Germany’s second-largest stock exchange and a major financial services group in Japan have partnered to expand their crypto operations in Europe and Asia. Boerse Stuttgart recently launched its crypto trading platform while SBI has been expanding its crypto business operations for several years.
Creating a ‘Truly Global’ Crypto Ecosystem
Boerse Stuttgart wrote:
Both partners will collaborate in order to create a truly global end-to-end ecosystem for digital assets, utilizing blockchain technology.
Alexander Höptner, Chairman of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart
Under the partnership agreement, SBI Holdings will invest in two of Boerse Stuttgart’s subsidiaries with crypto operations: Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange and Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. “The SBI Group, including its crypto asset trading platform and other related business operating companies, will fully make use of the collaboration with Boerse Stuttgart Group, to well-establish the actual demands of the digital asset throughout the world”, SBI Holdings President Yoshitaka Kitao commented. Alexander Höptner, the Chairman of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart, stated:
Asia and Europe are the fastest growing markets for digital assets at the moment … Besides the exchange of knowledge and technology, possible fields of collaboration include the cross issuance and listing of digital assets, trading and brokerage as well as the creation of the first global custody bridge.
SBI Holdings President Yoshitaka Kitao
Boerse Stuttgart’s Growing Presence in the Crypto Space
Boerse Stuttgart Group launched a digital asset trading platform called Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) in September. Earlier this month, the group opened the platform to all traders in Germany.
The company describes the platform as “Germany’s first regulated trading venue for digital assets where investors’ orders are executed directly against each other according to fixed rules.” It meets the regulatory requirements in accordance with section 2, paragraph 12 of the German Banking Act. The platform operator, Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange GmbH, is a joint venture of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH, Axel Springer SE and finanzen.net GmbH. Blocknox, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures, acts as the custodian holding customers’ cryptocurrencies.
Early this year, Boerse Stuttgart launched a crypto trading app called Bison, developed by Sowa Labs, a fintech subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. The smartphone app can be used to buy and sell BTC, ETH, LTC, and XRP from financial services provider Euwax AG, a subsidiary of Boerse Stuttgart.
SBI Has Been in Crypto Business Since 2016
The SBI Group is a major Japanese financial services company group based in Tokyo. The group has been in the crypto business since 2016. Among its crypto-related affiliated companies are SBI VC Trade, one of the first registered crypto exchanges in Japan; SBI Crypto, which specializes in crypto mining; SBI Crypto Investment, which invests in crypto startups; and SBI Mining Chip, which manufactures mining chips and develops mining systems for crypto assets.
SBI VC Trade was registered with Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), in September 2017 to operate a crypto exchange. It was one of 11 crypto exchange operators the FSA approved that month. Japan now has 21 registered crypto exchanges. SBI launched a crypto spot trading service called “Vctrade” in July last year for pre-registered investors and proceeded with the public launch the following month. The group also established SBI Ripple Asia in 2016 and SBI R3 Japan in January. Furthermore, on Oct. 1, SBI Securities and five other Japanese brokerage firms established the Japan Security Token Offering (STO) Association.
