SBI’s Crypto Exchange SBIVC Achieves Profits in First Fiscal Year, Considers STO

New Japanese crypto exchange SBI Virtual Currencies (SBIVC) achieved profitability in the first year of its launch, Cointelegraph Japan reports on April 26.

SBIVC exchange, launched by Tokyo-based financial services giant SBI Holdings, reportedly recorded a profit before tax of almost 360 million Japanese yen ($3.2 million) for the full fiscal year from April 2018 to March 31, 2019.

SBI also made a number of major announcements in its new financial report. As such, SBI revealed that it is considering the launch of a security token offering (STO) later this year, adding that the firm is awaiting the revision of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, which is scheduled for June 2019.

As well, SBI said it is planning to continue to expand its recently established crypto mining arm SBI Mining Chip (SBIMC), expecting to see an increase of the mining hash rate.

In addition, SBI said it will continue to strengthen its relationship with its major crypto partner Ripple, the firm behind the third-largest crypto by market cap XRP. Particularly, Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO and representative director SBI, has been recently appointed as an executive of Ripple Labs and noted his desire for the two entities to work together.

First announced in April 2018, SBI Virtual Currencies was registered as a business in late 2017, according to data from SBI’s new financial report. As the report notes, SBI Virtual Currencies went live in June 2018 with a limited amount of orders, while account registration started in July 2018.

As previously reported, SBI Virtual Currencies initially supported major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), XRP and bitcoin cash (BCH). In mid-April, the exchange officially announced its plans to delist bitcoin cash. Subsequently, SBI executives clarified that the removal of BCH from the exchange was not a result of other deslistings involving bitcoin SV (BSV) — a controversial hard fork of BCH — by a number of non-Japanese exchanges.