Japanese financial services giant SBI Holdings has revealed it will give its shareholders the option of receiving $XRP as a benefit for the third year in a row, further showing the firm’s support for the embattled cryptocurrency.

According to a Morningstar note, the firm is set to offer all shareholders with 100 or more shares as of March 31 the option to receive 2,500 Japanese yen (around $21) in the form of the XRP token. The 2,500 yen reward is for each batch of 100 tokens.

The firm first started offering shareholders XRP benefits in 2019. SBI Holdings has a history of working with Ripple, the largest player in the XRP market, including their joint venture SBI Ripple Asia in 2016 to promote the use of XRP.

As CryptoGlobe reported, SBI has launched last year a cryptoasset fund that invests in XRP and four other popular cryptoassets: BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC. At the time Tomoya Asakura, the President of SBI affiliate Morningstar Japan K.K., revealed the fund would require an investment of at least 1 million yen ($8,400).

Last year, SBI Holdings launched a new cryptocurrency lending service allowing users to earn an annual interest rate of 1% on their bitcoin holdings, with plans to expand the service to ETH and XRP. 

In an announcement on the new feature, dubbed ‘VCTrade Lending’ SBI detailed that users will be able to lend a minimum of 0.1 BTC, at press time worth close to $1,900, and a maximum of 5 BTC, at press time worth $94,790.

It also acquired Japanese cryptocurrency exchange TaoTao for an undisclosed amount, after negotiations between TaoTao and Binance to create a strategic partnership fell through for unknown reasons.

SBI’s shareholders could see the value of their XRP surge if the predictions of Jeremy Hogan, a legal expert and XRP supporter, come true. In June 2021, Hogan predicted that Ripple settling its lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could lead to an XRP supply shock, which presumably would lead to a price surge as demand would remain the same, while supply plunged.

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