Japan’s SBI Crypto Exchange Adds Two Major Cryptocurrencies

Japan’s SBI Virtual Currencies has added support for two major cryptocurrencies in addition to the one trading pair that its crypto exchange service, Vctrade, launched with. Users who pre-registered prior to the launch can now trade BTC, BCH, and XRP against the Japanese yen.

Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space

BTC and BCH Trading Now Supported

SBI Virtual Currencies, the cryptocurrency exchange subsidiary of one of Japan’s largest financial services groups, has announced support for two major cryptocurrencies. Starting Monday, June 18, customers can start trading BTC/JPY using the exchange’s Vctrade service. This is in addition to the BCH/JPY trading pair which the exchange started offering on June 8.

Popular Japanese Twitter user Ihayato, who has 177K followers, tried out the service for BCH and XRP. He tweeted his experience (loosely translated from Japanese):

SBI virtual currency exchange, spreads [are] tight. 3 yen for XRP and about 3,000 yen for BCH.

He further noted, “I do not think that there are merits to utilize here in the present situation. [But] I expect [there will be] in the future.”

Three Trading Pairs

SBI Virtual Currencies is one of the 16 government-approved crypto exchanges in Japan. The company launched the Vctrade crypto exchange service on June 4 with just the XRP/JPY trading pair. Currently, the service is only available to a limited number of users who pre-registered; the full launch is expected next month. With Monday’s announcement, the exchange now offers three trading pairs: BCH/JPY, BTC/JPY, and XRP/JPY.

For all three cryptocurrencies, customers can trade between 500 yen (~US$5.5) and 5 million yen (~$45,261). Alternatively, they can place their orders in cryptocurrencies of between 0.0001 and 40 BCH, 0.0001 and 5 BTC, or 10 and 70,000 XRP.

According to local media, SBI Group said at the company’s third-quarter earnings press conference that there is a possibility of adding ether (ETH) in the future. However, the company also indicated that it would not support smaller cryptocurrencies, Impress Corporation conveyed.

To gain market share in the crypto space, SBI Group plans to convert users from its existing securities business, which the group says is already the largest in Japan. SBI Securities “is number one in the share of individual stock trading value, number of accounts, deposits and profitability,” the group wrote. SBI Securities currently has approximately 4.17 million accounts.

What do you think of SBI crypto exchange adding the two cryptocurrencies? Do you think many more will be added? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, SBI Virtual Currencies, and Ihayato.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.