Yesterday, Cboe Global Markets announced that it has signed an agreement with Japan’s SBI to explore a business collaboration spanning traditional financial products and digital assets. The two companies may form joint ventures, subject to regulatory approvals.

There is plenty of room for collaboration as both organizations have significant interests in both traditional stock markets and digital assets. The firms stated that they would explore expanding Cboe Japan’s reach in the equity market and that SBI would expand its global distribution network for shares and digital assets.

A year ago, the CBOE acquired ErisX, a CFTC-regulated cryptocurrency spot market and futures exchange and clearinghouse. This August, it announced plans to rebrand ErisX as Cboe Digital. He outlined a long list of potential investors, including B2C2 from SBI, DRW, Interactive Brokers, Jane Street, Jump Crypto, Robinhood, and Virtu Financial.

Ed Tilly, Chairman and CEO of Cboe Global Markets, said that Cboe Digital will provide “client-driven solutions that will help institutions fully embrace this emerging asset class, (and) provide SBI with the opportunity to grow its global network to provide products and services in the digital asset space”.

In late 2020, SBI acquired institutional cryptocurrency market maker B2C2. It also owns a Japanese crypto exchange, an NFT market, and a major Bitcoin miner, SBI Crypto.

SBI has a joint venture in Singapore with SIX Group, AsiaNext, which plans to launch both institutional crypto trading and a secondary market for tokenized securities.

In June, SBI launched the Osaka Digital Exchange (ODX), which provides a private trading facility for securities listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange outside of business hours. Next year, ODX also plans to create a secondary market for security tokens.

In addition, SBI Digital Asset Holdings provides a wide range of services, including advisory, tokenization, and custody.

SBI has such a wide range of interests in blockchain and digital assets that these are just some of its main initiatives.

Beyond digital assets, Cboe has its stock market Cboe Japan, and SBI controls Japan’s largest private trading center, Japannext.