What to know:
- SoftBank is backing a new bitcoin investment firm, Twenty One Capital, alongside Tether, Bitfinex, and Cantor Fitzgerald.
- The move marks a return to crypto for the $308.7B asset manager, years after founder Masayoshi Son lost $130M on a personal bitcoin bet.
- SoftBank’s renewed crypto interest follows a surprise $2.4B quarterly loss and its inclusion in a $100B U.S. AI infrastructure initiative.
Japanese investment giant SoftBank is dipping its toes back into crypto by backing a new bitcoin (BTC) investment vehicle, Twenty One Capital, in conjunction with Tether, Bitfinex, and Cantor Fitzgerald.
For some, the SoftBank Group—which has $308.7 billion assets under management—taking an interest in bitcoin is a welcome development and another sign of mounting institutional crypto adoption. After all, SoftBank functions more or less like a Japanese sovereign wealth fund, according to Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise.
But for seasoned observers, it could be more of a déjà-vu than a breakthrough.
Flashback to 2019, SoftBank made headlines when its founder, Masayoshi Son, took a gigantic loss on a personal bitcoin investment.
Son had taken exposure to cryptocurrency in late 2017, when the ICO mania was at its peak and bitcoin was trading at an all-time high of around $20,000.
With bitcoin now trading at $93,000, Son’s investment would have been very profitable had he held on. But he sold in early 2018 as bitcoin began to crash, resulting in a $130 million loss, according to the Wall Street Journal.
So the question investors could be asking themselves now is, would this time be different?
To find a clue, let's take Oracle (ORCL) stock as an example. Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that SoftBank would be part of a $100 billion push to build AI infrastructure in the U.S. in conjunction with OpenAI and Oracle (ORCL).
One would say this is a bullish outcome for ORCL stock. However, since the announcement was made on Jan. 22, coinciding with ORCL topping at $188 per share, the stock fell 28%, while the Nasdaq has gone down 12% in the same period of time.
Other outside factors, including macro headwinds and geopolitical tension, could explain the underperformance. It could also be just a plain coincidence. However, one analyst tied this Oracle selloff to Softbank's involvement in the AI infrastructure project.
“When SoftBank enters an asset you own, you sell. I don't make the rules,” Quinn Thompson, founder of crypto hedge fund Lekker Capital, wrote in a post on X, citing the Oracle pullback.