SoftBank’s digital payment provider PayPay has taken a 40% stake in Binance’s Japan unit, seeking to capitalize on the country’s booming crypto market.
PayPay — a payments app operator owned by SoftBank’s Japanese telecom arm — announced the investment in Binance Japan in a joint statement on Thursday, without disclosing the amount paid for the stake. The companies plan to launch a service that will allow users to buy crypto through Binance using their PayPay accounts, they said.
Japan’s digital-assets market is heating up, with the value of crypto transactions in the country doubling in the first seven months of the year to ¥33.7 trillion ($230 billion), according to Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association data. That’s luring new entrants, including Nomura, which is seeking to expand in the country through a subsidiary.
SoftBank, which has been cautious about crypto-related investments in the past, is looking to debut PayPay on the U.S. stock market at a value of $10 billion or more.
The company is also reviewing a potential investment in Tether, the stablecoin issuer, which is attempting to raise up to $20 billion.
The PayPay deal comes after Abu Dhabi’s state-backed MGX — which is helping SoftBank to bankroll U.S. President Donald Trump’s AI infrastructure rollout Stargate — made a $2 billion investment in Binance in March using a stablecoin.
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