Yoshitaka Kitao, head of Japanese financial group SBI Holdings, answered "YES" when asked directly whether he still trusts $XRP.
An X user asked the question, writing that the past few weeks had been "truly exhausting" for $XRP holders and saying token holders felt Ripple had left them behind.
Kitao replied in English. Most of his recent posts on X are in Japanese, while the rest are reposts from other accounts.
@HokutoCrypto YES.
- 北尾吉孝 (@yoshitaka_kitao) November 12, 2026
Kitao previously worked as an executive at Nomura Securities and later served as CFO of SoftBank. In 1999, he founded SoftBank Investment, which later became SBI Holdings. Today, SBI includes banking, brokerage and insurance businesses, as well as crypto services.
SBI has worked with Ripple since 2016
The partnership began in 2016, when SBI joined Ripple's Series B round and launched the joint venture SBI Ripple Asia with Ripple. SBI owns about 60% of the venture, while Ripple owns the remaining 40%.
That same year, SBI Ripple Asia formed a consortium of Japanese banks to test Ripple's payment technology. The consortium later grew to more than 60 banks.
In 2018, SBI launched the interbank app MoneyTap. That year, SBI's crypto exchange, now called SBI VC Trade, began operations with $XRP trading. In 2019, Kitao joined Ripple's board of directors.
Starting in 2020, SBI distributed the token to shareholders as bonuses. The payment service SBI Remit also began using it for remittances with on-demand liquidity (ODL), including on the major Japan-Philippines corridor.
SBI continued working with Ripple during the SEC lawsuit against the company, which ran from December 2020 until 2025.
On February 15, 2026, in a rare series of long-form tweets in English, Kitao denied rumors that SBI held $10 billion worth of $XRP: "Not $10 billion in $XRP, but around 9% of Ripple Labs. So our hidden asset could be much bigger." According to Kitao, the combined valuation of Ripple Labs and its ecosystem is "enormous,", and SBI owns more than 9% of it.
Kitao also discussed $XRP at SBI's quarterly briefing on November 2, 2026. He said investors mostly buy Bitcoin to hold it, while $XRP's value depends on its use in payments and business ecosystems.
In August 2025, SBI VC Trade and Ripple agreed to bring the RLUSD stablecoin to Japan. In October 2025, SBI also invested $200 million in Evernorth, a company that holds $XRP in its treasury. SBI VC Trade now has more than two million accounts.
At press time, $XRP was trading at $1.02.
