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ToggleJapanese financial giant SBI Holdings announced this week that it will issue a 10 billion yen (approximately US$64.5 million) blockchain bond, SBI START Bonds.
The structure of this bond is not complicated: a 3-year term, an A- credit rating, an estimated annual interest rate of 1.85% to 2.45%, semi-annual interest payments, and Mizuho Bank acting as the bond manager. These conditions are fairly standard in the Japanese corporate bond market and will not excite any fixed-income investors.
But it has an unusual additional clause: buy bonds and get free XRP.
Specifically, after completing the subscription and opening an account on SBI VC Trade (SBI's crypto exchage), investors will immediately receive XRP equivalent to their subscription amount. The official announcement also states that additional XRP will be distributed on the interest payment dates in 2027, 2028, and 2029. (Each investment of 100,000 yen will earn 200 yen worth of XRP).
In other words, this is a hybrid bond that offers both fiat currency interest and crypto asset rewards.
This bond will be issued and managed on BOOSTRY's ibet for Fin platform, completely bypassing Japan's traditional JASDEC securities settlement system, and will be traded on the secondary market via the Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX) START trading platform. The subscription period is from March 11th to 23rd, with a minimum face value of 10,000 yen (approximately NT$2,100), and is open to general investors within Japan.
The decade-long marathon between SBI and Ripple
Why XRP? Let's rewind to 2016.
That year, SBI Holdings acquired a 9% stake in Ripple Labs, becoming Ripple's largest external shareholder. Also in 2019, the two companies established a joint venture, SBI Ripple Asia, to promote blockchain-based cross-border payments in Asia. In 2019, SBI Remit began using XRP as a bridging currency for cross-border remittances, marking one of XRP's earliest real-world applications.
In November 2025, Ripple completed a $500 million funding round at a valuation of $40 billion, increasing the book value of SBI's 9% stake to approximately $3.6 billion. In February 2026, SBI VC Trade became the first institution in Japan to obtain a "Provider of Electronic Payment Instruments" license, enabling it to process offshore stablecoins (USDC).
From equity investment to cross-border payments, to stablecoin licenses, and now to bond issuance, SBI has spent nearly ten years gradually embedding XRP into its financial product line.
Japan's security token market: a base of 16.8 billion yen
SBI's on-chain bonds are not an isolated case. Japan's security token market has moved beyond the proof-of-concept stage and entered the early stages of scaling.
Other large-scale issuances include: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) issued Japan's first bank digital bond in November 2025, also worth 10 billion yen; Nomura Securities completed delivery and settlement tests for multiple digital bonds, shortening the settlement cycle to T+1; and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government provides subsidies of up to 5 million yen to encourage companies to issue digital bonds.
A watershed moment in Japan's crypto regulation
2026 will be a pivotal year for the regulation of crypto assets in Japan.
Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) is pushing for a major reform: moving crypto assets from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, formally classifying them as financial instruments rather than payment instruments. This means that the regulatory framework for crypto assets will be aligned with that of stocks and bonds.
Accompanying this reform is a tax change: the capital gains tax on crypto assets will be reduced from a progressive system (maximum 55%) to a fixed 20%, consistent with the traditional capital gains tax rate. Furthermore, banks will be allowed to trade and hold crypto assets; the Digital Yen (DCJPY) is planned to be launched jointly by Japan Post Bank and the Bank of Japan in April of this year; and Mitsubishi, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Mizuho are testing yen-pegged stablecoins for cross-border payments.
Put these pieces together: a legal framework that treats crypto assets as financial products, a fixed 20% tax rate, a mature security token infrastructure, and an upcoming central bank digital currency. Japan is building one of the world's most complete digital asset ecosystems with a conservative regulatory approach.
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