Yesterday Cboe Global Markets announced it signed an agreement with Japan’s SBI to explore a business collaboration spanning traditional financial products and digital assets. The two companies may enter into joint ventures, subject to regulatory approvals.
There’s plenty of scope for collaboration as both organizations have significant interests in both traditional securities markets and digital assets. The firms stated that they would explore extending the reach of Cboe Japan in the equities market, and for SBI to expand its global distribution network for equities and digital assets.
A year ago, CBOE acquired ErisX, a spot cryptocurrency market and a CFTC-regulated futures exchange and clearing house. This August, it announced plans to rename ErisX as Cboe Digital. It outlined a long list of possible investors, including SBI’s B2C2, DRW, Interactive Brokers, Jane Street, Jump Crypto, Robinhood and Virtu Financial.
Ed Tilly, Chairman and CEO of Cboe Global Markets, said that Cboe Digital will provide “client-driven solutions that help institutions fully embrace this emerging asset class, (and) will provide SBI the opportunity to grow its global network for providing products and services in the digital asset space.”
In late 2020, SBI acquired institutional cryptocurrency market maker B2C2. It also owns a Japanese crypto exchange, an NFT marketplace and a major Bitcoin miner SBI Crypto.
SBI has a joint venture in Singapore with the SIX Group, AsiaNext, which is planning to launch both institutional crypto trading and a secondary market for tokenized securities.
In June, SBI launched the Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX), which provides a private trading system for listed Tokyo Stock Exchange securities outside of office hours. Next year ODX also plans to create a secondary market for security tokens.
Additionally, SBI Digital Asset Holdings provides a wide range of services, including advisory, tokenization and custody.
SBI has such a broad range of blockchain and digital asset interests that these are just some of its major initiatives.
Beyond digital assets, Cboe has its Cboe Japan equities market, and SBI controls the largest private trading venue in Japan, Japannext.
