The CEO of Japanese crypto and financial giant SBI Holdings, Yoshitaka Kitao, has spoken out on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) – and said China is leading the way.

Boss SBI Says China Leading the CBDC Race

Kitao was quoted by local media company Dime as saying:

“China is the most advanced country in the CBDC [công nghệ]followed by the United States and Europe.

He noted that Fiat currently prevails in the world of trade finance, but claimed that it has only “so far” been the case. In his opinion, this could change quickly if the CBDC becomes the “national currency”.

Kitao, who is also a member of the board of directors of Ripple, stated that market participants would have to enter the “new financial market” and develop new “financial products” accordingly.

He pointed out that it is difficult for domestic banks to “work on top fields right now” like CBDCs, adding that SBI’s own research unit is working “hard and research” on innovations related to digital currency.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is currently testing its own digital yen prototype, but like most advanced economies (other than China and its digital yuan project), the bank has yet to commit to adopting a CBDC.

Kitao also stated that cryptocurrencies and “digital” assets will grow faster in the future:

“I think the digital asset financial sector will move to a point where the digital economy – including cashless social endeavors – has advanced.”

SHB’s boom in crypto-related activities

SBI’s own crypto-related activities have exploded in recent years, with a profitable cryptocurrency mining arm currently in operation and numerous international crypto companies in its portfolio.

The company has also caught up with the competing TaoTao platform in an ambitious step and is now integrating the exchange into its own brand platform.

The company also runs the SBI Ripple Asia payments initiative together with Ripple.

However, the success of SBI’s domestic crypto subsidiary – SBI VC Trade – has been a little more subdued. In 2018, Kitao stated that if SBI launches its own trading platform, it will “quickly become number one in the Japanese market”.

This has not been proven for apps like the chat giant Line or the e-commerce giant Rakuten.

In a survey of 300 Japanese crypto investors conducted by the media company CoinOtaku, respondents were asked to choose their preferred crypto exchange. The winner with 30% of the vote was Coincheck, the largest hacked exchange in crypto history in 2018. After the hack, Coincheck (originally a small startup) was taken over by the competition, SBI is the Monex Group.

In second place is bitFlyer, a much smaller company than SBI, Line and the others, with over 20% of the vote. In third place is GMO Coin, another crypto startup. In fourth place is Rakuten’s Rakuten Wallet, with another SME – DMM Bitcoin – in the top 5.

For SBI VC Trade, only 2% were rounded up and a little more than 1.5% opted for Bitmax from Line.

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