Japan’s biggest financial group is moving to list an XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) ETF on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. SBI Holdings filed two ETF applications with Japan’s Financial Services Agency in August 2025, including what would be the country’s first spot XRP product. The plan targets $32 billion in assets under management within three years of launch.
SBI has been Ripple’s biggest external shareholder since 2016, runs Japan’s only live XRP-powered remittance corridor, and processes most of Ripple’s global On-Demand Liquidity volume. The XRP rails are already there, what’s been missing is a Japanese law that lets crypto exist inside an ETF—and that finally changed on April 10.
Whether SBI’s plan moves XRP higher now comes down to timing, regulation, and a race that’s just starting between Japan’s biggest financial firms.
Inside SBI’s $32B Plan for a Tokyo-Listed XRP ETF
SBI laid out the proposal in its Q2 2025 financial results presentation and filed formal applications with Japan’s Financial Services Agency shortly after. Crypto analyst Xaif resurfaced the plan on X recently, but it has been with regulators for nine months.
SBI’s filing covers two separate products. The first is a Crypto-Asset ETF that holds Bitcoin and XRP directly and would list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The second is a Digital Gold Crypto ETF that allocates at least 51% to gold ETF shares and up to 49% to crypto ETFs like Franklin Templeton’s EZBC Bitcoin fund. Together, they target $32 billion in assets under management within three years.
The plan also runs on a partnership SBI set up well before any FSA filing. In July 2024, SBI and Franklin Templeton formed a joint crypto ETF management company in Japan. Franklin Templeton brings roughly $1.7 trillion in assets under management and already runs XRPZ, the lowest-fee spot XRP ETF in the U.S. at 0.19%.
So, SBI brings the Japanese distribution and a decade of Ripple infrastructure that no other Japanese issuer can match.
Why SBI Is the Right Partner for Japan’s First XRP ETF
SBI holds roughly 9% of Ripple, which amounts to the biggest external equity stake in the company. The Japanese giant bought in years before the SEC lawsuit and held through the four-year legal battle that froze most institutional partners.
SBI Remit became Japan’s first On-Demand Liquidity provider in 2021, using XRP as a bridge currency for settlement corridors to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Then on March 31, 2026, SBI VC Trade started distributing Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin in Japan—a first for any Asian market.
More than half of Ripple’s worldwide On-Demand Liquidity volume flows through Japanese corridors, and SBI runs the only live ODL corridor in the country. The missing piece was a Japanese law that let crypto exist inside an ETF, and that changed on April 10.
How Japan’s New Crypto Law Opens the Door for SBI’s ETF
Japan has regulated crypto under the Payment Services Act since 2017. That law governs payment instruments like e-money and prepaid cards, and it treats Bitcoin and XRP as payment tools rather than investment products. A Japanese ETF can’t hold them. Pension funds, insurance companies, and asset managers can’t touch crypto through regulated channels.
On April 10, 2026, Japan’s cabinet rewrote the framework. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama pushed through a cabinet-approved amendment to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act—the same law that governs stocks and bonds. Once enacted, it reclassifies 105 cryptoassets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, as financial instruments. It also adds insider trading bans and mandatory annual disclosures, with penalties matching Japan’s securities laws.
However, the bill still has to clear Japan’s Diet. Parliament needs to pass it in the current session for the framework to take effect in fiscal year 2027. From there, the FSA is targeting fiscal 2028 for the first crypto ETF approvals. SBI’s product can’t list before that window opens, which gives Japan’s existing XRP demand at least 18 months to keep building.
How SBI’s ETF Plus Japan’s Tax Cut Could Reshape XRP Demand
Between July 2024 and June 2025, $21.7 billion in Japanese yen moved into XRP through centralized exchanges—more than four times what flowed into Bitcoin and roughly ten times the inflows to Cardano. That happened under one of the world’s harshest crypto tax regimes, with gains taxed as miscellaneous income at rates up to 55%.
However, Japan’s reform will replace that progressive 55% rate with a flat 20%—matching the rate applied to stocks and investment trusts. The package will also add a three-year loss carryforward, the same provision stock investors get. Implementation is targeted for late 2026 or early 2027. The reform applies to “specified crypto assets” on FSA-registered exchanges, which is exactly where SBI’s ETF would list.
Under FIEA, pension funds, insurance companies, and asset managers can finally hold crypto-backed ETFs through the same compliance rails and brokerage channels they already use for Japanese equities.
A Japanese pension fund will be able to buy the SBI XRP ETF the same way it buys Toyota stock. Combined with retail demand that already favors XRP and a tax rate dropping to equity parity, the setup is the strongest XRP has ever had in Japan. All of that depends on timing—and SBI isn’t running unopposed.
When SBI’s XRP ETF Could Launch — and Who’s Racing to Beat It
Japan’s other financial giants are racing for the same approval window. Nikkei reports that Rakuten Securities is developing in-house crypto investment trusts and ETFs distributed through its brokerage platform. Nomura Securities, Daiwa Securities, and SMBC Group are all preparing crypto investment products. SBI is just the first to file.
However, filing first is just one of SBI’s advantages. Rakuten, Nomura, Daiwa, and SMBC are all building crypto expertise from scratch, while SBI already has it—plus a Franklin Templeton joint venture that none of the other Japanese firms can match. The competition is trying to catch up to where SBI started two years ago.
Outside Japan, the pressure is building as well. South Korea is rolling out its 22% crypto tax in January 2027, and Hong Kong already approved spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in 2024. Japan can’t afford to let institutional crypto flows route through neighbors that move faster. That pressure could speed FSA approvals, but it could also push competitors through alongside SBI. Whichever firm lists first picks up the early-mover institutional flows.
Is SBI’s XRP ETF the Catalyst XRP Has Been Waiting For?
SBI’s XRP ETF is a real catalyst, but most likely a 2027 one—not one for 2026. For perspective, U.S. spot XRP ETFs have pulled in $1.39 billion in cumulative inflows since their November 2025 launch. SBI’s $32 billion target is roughly 23 times that. Japanese institutional money has had no regulated path to XRP for the last decade. When the SBI ETF lists, that pent-up demand finally gets a path home.
That said, there are three key things to watch from here. The first is whether Japan’s Diet passes the FIEA amendment in the current session, since the framework stalls entirely without it. The second is whether Rakuten, Nomura, Daiwa, or SMBC file their own ETF applications, which would signal the institutional race moving from preparation to execution. The third is the FSA’s first approval, the moment the catalyst stops being theoretical. Until then, this is a 2027 setup worth tracking, not a 2026 XRP price catalyst.
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