Japan’s SBI Holdings is planning to create a joint venture investment company with U.S. asset manager Franklin Templeton with a focus on digital assets. SBI will have a 51% to Franklin Templeton’s 49%.
The Nikkei first reported the news saying it was in preparation for offering digital asset ETFs in Japan following the launch of spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in the United States. Franklin Templeton has ETFs for both cryptocurrencies and is eyeing a potential Solana ETF. In Europe there’s a staked Solana ETP managed by 21Shares with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion, making it Europe’s third largest crypto ETP.
Subsequently, Franklin Templeton confirmed the planned SBI collaboration in Japan will target ETFs and emerging asset classes including digital assets and cryptocurrencies.
“The extensive reach of SBI’s iconic brand amongst younger audiences in Japan aligns well our commitment to help this new generation of investors achieve their goals through our future-focused investment solutions,” said Jenny Johnson, President and CEO of Franklin Templeton
“This strategic partnership underscores our shared belief that best-in-class financial capabilities should be more accessible for investors. It also represents a tremendous step forward to broaden our client reach and solidify our commitment in the market.”
Franklin Templeton and SBI are two of the incumbents that are most engaged with web3, not just blockchain.
SBI’s web3 track record
SBI set up an umbrella group SBI Digital Asset Holdings to manage some of its digital asset initiatives. Separately, it operates a Bitcoin miner SBI Crypto which at one point made up a significant proportion of Bitcoin’s hash rate, currently accounting for just over 2%. SBI also runs a crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and owns one of the largest international cryptocurrency market makers, B2C2. On the tokenization side, it launched the first Japanese secondary market for security tokens, ODX START.
SBI Chairman and CEO, Yoshitaka Kitao, said SBI is “proud of being a fast-rising financial group in Japan leveraging technology as one of its key sources of growth, and promoting various businesses related to Web3.”
Franklin Templeton’s crypto credentials
Franklin Templeton was the first major incumbent to launch a tokenized money market fund FOBXX on a public blockchain in 2021. It started by using the Stellar blockchain but extended it to Polygon, Aptos, Arbitrum and Avalanche. It was the largest on chain money market fund (AUM $402m) until shortly after BlackRock launched BUIDL. However, the asset manager’s interest extends beyond tokenization and it is deeply engaged in cryptocurrency research. In order to understand the area, it operates nodes on a dozen blockchains.
Update: Quotes were added post publication.
