Japan’s SBI Group Develops Digital Wallet for Government-Licensed Crypto Exchange

Japanese financial services giant SBI licenses Sepior’s Threshold Wallet technology for use in their proprietary wallet, to be integrated with the SBI Virtual Currencies exchange platform

Sepior ApS, a leader in threshold cryptography for highly secure online transactions, and the SBI Group, the leading Japanese online financial services firm actively developing cryptocurrency markets in Asia, announced an agreement to license Sepior’s Threshold-Sig Wallet Security technology and to jointly develop a proprietary wallet to secure the on-line contents and transactions on SBI’s Virtual Currencies exchange platform, VCTRADE. Sepior’s threshold signature approach using multiparty computation (MPC) provides the highest level of encryption key protection available for cryptocurrency wallets, addressing the most salient criteria for achieving online wallet and transaction security. 

Worldwide interest in cryptocurrencies has surged in recent years; however, major losses from cyberattacks on cryptocurrencies have created legitimate concerns about security measures implemented by cryptocurrency exchanges. More than $1.6 billion in today’s values have been lost from such attacks since 2014, and the vast majority of the events are linked to insufficient key security. SBI is setting new standards for cryptocurrency exchange security, in part through more effective key management and protection using Sepior’s Threshold Wallet technology.

Critical requirements for institutional-grade cryptocurrency exchanges include the ability to provide custodial wallet services with the highest level of security for signing transactions, storing private key components, and minimizing the risk of assets being frozen or moved without the approval of the end-user or custodians. Sepior’s patented Threshold Wallet technology, which enables rapid signing of transactions involving multiple parties is instrumental in helping SBI Virtual Currencies satisfy these requirements. Also critical is the nature of Sepior’s key protection approach, which eliminates the need for any device or entity to possess the entire private key at any time, making it effectively impossible for an attack to result in key theft.

“After extensive investigation, our security research team determined threshold signatures based on multiparty computation (MPC) offered our desired level of security, performance, and scalability needed to manage transactions for our growing SBI Virtual Currencies customer base”, said Yoshitaka Kitao, Representative Director, President & CEO of SBI Holdings. “Sepior is recognized as a market leader in cryptography and threshold MPC. They’ve applied these core competencies to facilitate secure on-line transactions without the classic reliance on a single trusted party.” 

“We are absolutely thrilled to be working with the SBI Group”, said Ahmet Tuncay, chief executive officer of Sepior. “SBI Virtual Currencies operates the first bank-backed, government-licensed cryptocurrency exchange in the most active cryptocurrency trade region in the world. SBI Virtual Currencies will set new industry benchmarks for security, performance, scale, and privacy for cryptocurrency exchanges with its institutional-grade custodial services. Sepior is proud to be SBI’s trusted development partner and technology provider in this endeavor.”