Ripple, a firm focused on enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, and SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial services conglomerate and its subsidiary SBI VC Trade Co., Ltd., a provider of crypto asset exchange business (jointly SBI Group), announced an MOU for SBI VC Trade, “a licensed Electronic Payment Instruments Exchange Service Provider in Japan and subsidiary of SBI, outlining their intention to distribute Ripple USD (RLUSD) in Japan.”
Valued at nearly $300 billion today, the stablecoin market is “expected to grow into the trillions in the coming years.”
As stablecoins become a key part of “global financial infrastructure, the next wave of adoption will be driven by utility and institutional demand.”
RLUSD is a said to be a trusted, “enterprise-grade stablecoin, built with compliance and transparency in mind.”
RLUSD is said to be fully backed by “high-quality reserves, including U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. government bonds, and other cash equivalents, with monthly attestations from a third-party accounting firm.”
This commitment to regulatory clarity reportedly “sets RLUSD apart from other stablecoins and provides the security that institutions require and expect.”
SBI VC Trade aims to make RLUSD available in Japan “during the first quarter of 2026.”
As covered, Ripple is the provider of digital asset infrastructure for financial institutions—”delivering simple, compliant, reliable software that unlocks efficiencies, reduces friction, and enhances innovation in global finance.”
Ripple’s solutions leverage the XRP Ledger and its native digital asset, XRP, which was purpose-built to “enable fast, low-cost, highly scalable transactions across developer and financial use cases.”
With a track record working with regulators and policymakers, Ripple’s payments, custody and stablecoin solutions are enhancing the digital asset economy—building “credibility and trust in enterprise blockchain.”
Together with customers, partners and the developer community, they are claiming to be “transforming the way the world stores, exchanges, and moves value.”
SBI VC Trade, under the slogan “Cryptocurrency is also SBI,” leverages the comprehensive “capabilities of the SBI Group, Japan’s largest internet-based financial services group, to provide a full range of cryptocurrency trading services.”
As a Crypto Asset Exchange Service Provider, Type 1 Financial Instruments Service Provider, and Electronic Payment Instruments Exchange Service Provider, they “operate under a security framework.”
Beyond buying and selling crypto assets, they are expanding into “crypto asset management services and corporate- focused services, as well as becoming the first in Japan to begin handling the USDC.”
They are committed to creating “services and businesses rooted in a customer-centric principle.”
