SBI Holdings, a Japan-based financial services firm recently announced the establishment of a new subsidiary to manufacture and develop crypto mining chips and systems.

The new venture, dubbed SBI Mining Chip Co. (SBIMC) forms part of SBI’s strategy on virtual currency related business, according to an announcement made on Friday.

SBIMC will oversee the manufacturing and development of crypto miners in partnership with a large yet unnamed semiconductor company based in the USA according to SBI.

The new subsidiary will be led by a former NASA veteran Adama Traidman who is said to have a “high level of expertise in the field of leading-edge semiconductors and other electronics.”

Furthermore, Traidman is said to have over twenty years of experience and has in the past served as CEO of Chip Estimate as well as WearSeans (Developers of wearable tech in the dietary monitoring field). In the past, he has also served as CEO of BRD, which SBI Group has invested in as well as per the announcement.

Notably, SBI Group via its subsidiary SBI Crypto, created a mining pool for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) just last year but has since ceased mining the crypto.

SBI first revealed to the world their interest in the crypto community back in 2017. At the time, the company stated that it was seeking to acquire cryptocurrencies directly including through mining and by the establishment of using crypto as investment opportunities.

Over the past few years, the firm has expanded into a myriad of areas within the industry including the establishment of the regulated crypto exchange VCTRADE back in June and the launch of the blockchain-based money transfer application, MoneyTap which they launched in partnership with Ripple in October.

Lastly, the group invested $15 million in Swiss startup Tangem earlier this year, a manufacturer of slimline hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, SBI also recently entered into a joint venture with R3, a blockchain consortium startup in an effort to boost the adoption of R3’s Corda platform in Japan and other nations.