Crypto Currency

SoftBank Is Buying Bitcoin Again, After $130M Loss in 2018. Is This Time Different?

Markets Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email SoftBank Is Buying Bitcoin Again, After $130M Loss in 2018. Is This Time Different? SoftBank returns to crypto years after founder Masayoshi Son lost $130M on bitcoin. By Helene Braun, Tom Carreras| Edited by Aoyon Ashraf Updated Apr 25, 2025, 7:09 p.m.

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SoftBank Is Buying Bitcoin Again, After $130M Loss in 2018. Is This Time Different?

SoftBank returns to crypto years after founder Masayoshi Son lost $130M on bitcoin.

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son in Japan in 2src25. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son in Japan in 2025. (Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)

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.

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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.

SoftBankAnalysisBitcoin
Helene Braun

Helene is a New York-based markets reporter at CoinDesk, covering the latest news from Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and updates on crypto markets. She is a graduate of New York University’s business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.

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Helene Braun

Tom Carreras

Tom writes about markets, bitcoin mining and crypto adoption in Latin America. He has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from McGill University, and can usually be found in Costa Rica. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.

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