Tokyo-based financial giant SBI Holdings is collaborating with Startale Group, the blockchain development company behind Sony's Layer 2, to jointly create a customized Layer 1 blockchain. The new network, named Strium, will be specifically designed for Real World Assets (RWA), with a focus on supporting security tokenization.

This move comes amid a surge of interest in on-chain equities, as the market leverages blockchain to build entirely new 24/7 spot and derivatives stock markets. Crypto-native companies like Kraken, established fintech firms like Robinhood, and even traditional institutions such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are rapidly advancing their on-chain equities capabilities.

SBI and Startale first announced their collaboration in August 2025, planning to build an around-the-clock RWA trading platform aimed at providing access to stocks from the US, Japan, and other countries, as well as enabling near-instant cross-border settlement, fractional ownership, and composability with DeFi.

Additionally, the two parties have recently co-developed a yen-denominated stablecoin for global settlement and institutional adoption.