Japan’s regulatory environment for crypto is considered strict and it is also relatively open to innovation in financial technology. To this end, the country’s SBI Group (Strategic Business Innovation Group) announced the launch of crypto funds for investors.

Japan’s SBI First Fund Directly Invested into Cryptocurrency Assets

According to a press release on December 18, the SBI Group would start processing the SBI Cryptocurrency Asset Fund (Tokumei Kumiai No.1) for ordinary investors. This is Japan’s first fund that invests directly in cryptocurrency assets

The company’s detailed announcement reported that the seven cryptocurrencies on offer are Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Chainlink and Polkadot.

SBI stated that the maximum number of holders is 499 and noted that the product is an investment of 5 million yen or more in units of 1 million yen.

At press time, 1 million yen is roughly $8,795.08. The subscription period runs from December 17, 2021, to January 31, 2022, the contract period from February 1, 2022, to January 31, 2023. An asset becomes extremely dominant.

The translation of the same document indicated that they can temporarily lend the cryptocurrency assets to be sold to cryptocurrency exchanges in order to successfully sell cryptocurrency assets, but this is only a technical measure, not a profit target.

What is interesting, however, is that the SBI Group pointed out the launch of the Bitcoin Futures ETF in the US and the popularity of NFT as a blockchain use case in the press release.

Crypto funds are good, on the other hand, Japan is under pressure to accelerate the development of its own CBDC. This is because China’s digital renminbi is widespread across the country and even international brands have participated, even before the soft start of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Kobayashi Accept That Japanese CBDC Needs More Action

Indeed, the Japanese Minister of Economy and Security, Takayuki Kobayashi, also admitted that the CBDC needs more action. The minister named national security as one of the reasons. 

At the beginning of December, he pointed out that they need to think about what might happen to Japan’s national security if other countries make progress on the CBDC.

He added that Japan needs to accelerate its pace so that it is ready to spend anytime digital yen.”