SBI Claims XRP Is A Crypto Asset In Japan And Not A Security

SBI claims XRP is a crypto asset in Japan and it is probably the only company that got Ripple’s back in the latest lawsuit developments. Japan-based financial giant SBI Holdings released a new statement on Monday saying that under the Japanese law, Ripple is not a security, it is rather a crypto asset so let’s find out more in the latest Ripple news.

The statement arrived after the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple Labs claiming that it made about $1.3 billion in profits for selling XRP to retail investors but failed to register the cryptocurrency as a security in the US. SBI referenced a new research article by Sadakazu Osaki of the Nomura Research Institute says that under Japanese law XRP is a crypto asset and it is not a security in Japan. SBI claims XRP is a good choice and it is considered cryptocurrency in the country.

As previously reported, Ripple intended to invest in SBI’s Money Tap blockchain-based payments subsidiary which aimed to use the RippleNet technology to lower the Japanese transfer costs. Most of the crypto companies are backing away from XRP in the world including Bitstamp, Bitwise, and the Hong Kong trading platform OSL. Joel Edgerton who is the chief operating officer of BitFlyer USA said:

“SBI is putting lipstick on a pig to try and minimize the damage to its reputation in Japan from the Ripple lawsuit. SBI is an aggressive player in the Japanese financial industry and it is working to buy the pieces required to make it a leader in Japanese crypto. However, it has many other regulated businesses that will not want any negative reputation impact.”

Founded back in 1999, SBI Group Japan is a financial services company that is based in Tokyo, Japan. Apart from offering multiple traditional financial services, SoftBank Group subsidiary announced a new crypto-related endeavor. SBI Group introduced a new crypto asset lending service via its crypto branch SBI VC trade. The statement informed that the platform VC Trade Lending will initially support only Bitcoin but has more plans of adding support for ETH, XRP, and more crypto assets. It’s worth noting that the SBI Group Japanese Giant was involved with other crypto-related projects ever before. A few years ago, the financial giant launched Japan’s first-bank-backed crypto exchange by hiring two professional e-sports players and even paid them in Ripple’s XRP.