Sony Subsidiary to Launch Bitcoin Exchange
Japanese Tech Giant Sony to Launch Revitalized Bitcoin Exchange: Corporate Acceptance of Bitcoin Grows Amid National Debt Concerns
In an overlooked but long-running series of developments, Japanese tech conglomerate Sony has shocked the world with its new announcement of launching a rebranded Bitcoin exchange.
This shocking news first came to light on July 1st, when the company revealed that it would rebrand and reactivate the Amber Japan Bitcoin exchange under the new name of S.BLOX. Alongside the initial announcement, Sony also declared that Amber’s old interface and mobile app would be significantly upgraded in preparation for a broad release without an official date. To call this development unexpected would be an understatement. Sony, a conglomerate with around $200 million in assets under management and such diverse tech and entertainment holdings as Columbia Pictures and the PlayStation, is getting into Bitcoin. How could such a thing occur, and what would it mean for corporate acceptance elsewhere?
As it turns out, the developments on this front have been building since 2022. In a press release dated that September, the company DeCurret Co. Ltd. announced that it would rename itself “Amber Japan” as part of a series of corporate restructurings, as it had partnered itself with Amber Group, a prominent digital asset firm. The newly-dubbed Amber Japan would launch its own crypto exchange, WhaleFin, as a result of this partnership, and awaited new revenues from this business diversification. However, by April 2023, Bloomberg reported a much less rosy picture inside Amber Group. The company endured a difficult period throughout the end of 2022, Managing Partner Annabelle Huang, claimed in an interview, and the leadership was seriously considering a sale. This interview came at the same time as Amber’s board of directors underwent major shuffles.
Although Huang identified Hong Kong and Singapore as potential buyers, it came about by August of that year that the new buyer was also a Japanese firm. Quetta Web Co. Ltd. was identified in a press release as the new owner of Amber Japan, and Quetta is “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony." Since the sale in 2023, Amber “has since been operating as an affiliate of the Sony Group,” according to the press release. This acquisition was not Sony’s only foray into the world of cryptocurrency, as it invested $3.5 million in the blockchain company Startale in June.
Sony’s investment in this blockchain firm was no mere coincidence, however. As it turns out, resources from this blockchain firm would also be employed at the newly-reformed S.BLOX. Startale’s founder and CEO revealed that his company’s external director was tapped to lead the new exchange, but further details have been rather sparse. In addition to these more closely related investments, the firm has also made plans to release other Web3 applications and filed NFT patents. As of yet, these investments have no direct link to S.BLOX, but nonetheless, they are clear evidence of a multifaceted approach to the broader cryptoasset industry.
In trying to make sense of Sony’s bold new Bitcoin strategy, an obvious comparison can be found in the case of Metaplanet. This Japanese investment firm saw its stock value skyrocket after making massive Bitcoin purchases in the same vein as MicroStrategy. Of particular interest to Bitcoiners, however, has been contrasting this Japanese upstart with Saylor’s own motivations. Metaplanet’s leadership spoke of a “spiraling debt crisis” imminent in Japan’s economy and the yen and claimed that it adopted Bitcoin as a reserve asset in “direct response to sustained economic pressures in Japan, notably high government debt levels, prolonged periods of negative real interest rates, and the consequently weak yen”.
In other words, it’s a subtle difference from Saylor’s bombastic endorsements of Bitcoin, but the difference is certainly there. MicroStrategy acted, at the time, in more direct contravention of the prevailing ideas within the US business sphere. Metaplanet, on the other hand, cast its backing of Bitcoin as a pragmatic move. More than repeatedly praising Bitcoin as the future for the whole world, they’ve seen Bitcoin as a stable alternative next to a shaky yen. Of course, Metaplanet also invested an additional 200 million yen into the cryptoasset on July 1st, as well as hiring prominent Bitcoiners into roles of responsibility, so it can’t be claimed that they have zero love for Bitcoin. And, indeed, the choice to back it has profited them immensely. Still, as its stock value rises, it offers a tempting promise to other tech-savvy business leaders in the country.
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