Live markets: Japan's collapsing yen is pushing companies into bitcoin and XRP

The yen is trading near its weakest level in four decades, and Japanese companies are moving crypto onto their balance sheets to escape it.

SBI VC Trade on Tuesday said corporate demand for bitcoin and XRP is climbing as the currency's slide pushes firms to diversify reserves beyond cash, with the exchange's registered accounts passing 2 million, roughly double its 2025 count.

Hedge funds have turned the most bearish on the yen since 2007, boosting bets on further losses to nearly 138,000 contracts as of June 30, per CFTC data. The dollar buys around 162 yen as of Asian morning hours Wednesday.

The driver is the interest-rate gap between a hawkish U.S. Fed and a Bank of Japan still far behind it, the same gap that makes holding yen cash a losing position and sends firms looking for harder assets.

SBI, the crypto arm of Tokyo-based SBI Holdings, noted demand for its corporate service has grown alongside companies that hand out bitcoin or XRP through shareholder-perk programs.

The move fits a pattern the market has watched all month. A weak yen has fed the carry trade, where investors borrow cheaply in yen to buy higher-returning assets elsewhere, and some of that flow is now reaching crypto through regulated Japanese channels rather than offshore ones.

Bitcoin traded near $62,650 on Tuesday, up 6.1% on the week, per CoinDesk data.

Source: CoinDesk