While revealing SBI’s investment, Tangem said the investment would allow it to broaden technology to other domains such as stablecoins, tokenized asset offerings, initial coin offerings (ICOs), digital identity and many more. The media reports have been affirmed in a separate news release by SBI.
The company said that although it didn’t reveal the exact amount, the funding was disbursed through its wholly-owned and managed subsidiary SBI Crypto Investment, which infuses funds in digital assets. Regarding the investment, SBI said it put in funds into Tangem because its “inexpensive” and “robust” wallet gadget could beef up crypto asset demand and its own product lines.
Yoshitaka Kitao, representative director, president & CEO of SBI Holdings, said “The Tangem hardware wallet, which is highly secure and affordable, is an important tool to promote mass adoption of digital assets and blockchain. We believe utilizing Tangem will help stimulate the demand for other blockchain services provided by SBI.”
In October last year, SBI Group collaborated with Sepior, a tech firm based out of Denmark and focused on blockchain security, to build a digital wallet for its crypto exchange VCTRADE. Likewise, last March the group acquired a 40% stake in Taiwan based cold wallet manufacturer CoolBitX.
Hardware wallets are a popular method for storing cryptos, as many online exchanges have experienced serious hacks. Japan crypto exchanges and investors have lost 60,503 billion yen (about $540 million) in the first half of 2018, according to the National Police Agency (NPA) report. Another survey shows that crypto hacks have resulted in a loss of over $880 million in the past 18 months worldwide.