SBI Bets on XRP Over ETH for Japan's First Crypto ETFs as Zero-Rate Culture Drives Retail Into Alt Assets!

SBI Holdings is prioritizing XRP over Ethereum in its push to launch crypto ETFs in Japan, a strategic call that Ripple's APAC VP Fiona Murray says is rooted in the country's unique yield-starved retail culture. Murray draws a direct line between Japan's near-zero interest rate environment and its outsized appetite for alternative assets: when savings accounts pay nothing, retail investors go searching for yield — and historically that search built the world's largest retail FX market.

The same dynamic, Murray argues, is now channeling Japanese retail toward digital assets, with XRP positioned as the preferred vehicle given SBI's deep institutional ties to Ripple and XRP's established presence in Japanese financial infrastructure.

For ETF watchers, the SBI-XRP alignment signals that the first wave of Japanese crypto ETF products may look meaningfully different from the US playbook —…