Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings is entering the tokenized stock market through a new partnership with Singapore-based blockchain company Startale Group. With this partnership, they plan to create an on-chain trading platform for tokenized stocks and real-world assets (RWAs).
As per the official announcement, the platform will combine SBI’s financial network with Startale’s blockchain technology, which will fill critical market gaps left by traditional tokenized stock services.
What will Platform offer?
The traditional stock markets close on evenings and weekends, but the platform will allow people to trade U.S. and Japanese stocks 24/7. The platform will further provide fractional ownership, allowing investors to purchase a fraction of a stock rather than a whole one, in addition to quick settlement of trades and institutional-grade security.
The new platform will also integrate with DeFi, thus enabling investors to employ tokenized stocks in various financial apps and services.
SBI Holdings oversees over $74 billion in assets and has over 65 million customers across the globe. The company views asset tokenization as the future of global finance. It also thinks this trend would one day make entire capital markets, including stock exchanges themselves, digitalized.
Future Plans
This move positions SBI among the firms such as Robinhood, Kraken, Gemini, and Bybit, which have recently broadened tokenized stock offerings. Specialists estimate that the market of tokenized assets will be worth $18.9 trillion in 2033, and SBI and Startale intend to create infrastructure to assist in this prospect.
Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of SBI Holdings, said that the tokenization of real-world assets is transforming global markets. He also predicts, “This movement will eventually lead to the digitalization of capital markets themselves, including exchanges. By capturing this trend and by leveraging our corporate ecosystem together with Startale’s blockchain technology, we have great expectations for creating a new decentralized platform.”
For this, SBI and Startale will form two joint venture companies—one to handle the technology development, and another to manage brand growth and business expansion.
Funding for the project will be released step by step based on progress milestones, ensuring careful growth toward commercial launch. The companies said more details, including the launch date, will be announced as development continues.
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