Japan’s SBI Group, a financial conglomerate overseeing more than USD 200 billion in assets, announced a strategic partnership with blockchain‐infrastructure provider Chainlink to speed up institutional adoption of digital assets in Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific region. The collaboration will use Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol to issue and move tokenized real-world assets such as real estate and government bonds across multiple blockchains, publish net-asset-value data on-chain for tokenized funds through Chainlink SmartData, and deploy Proof of Reserve to verify backing for regulated stablecoins. The firms also intend to develop payment-versus-payment solutions for foreign-exchange and cross-border settlements. “Chainlink is a natural partner for SBI,” Chairman and Chief Executive Yoshitaka Kitao said, citing the oracle network’s reliability and compliance features. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said the agreement moves earlier pilot projects “towards production usage at large scale.” A recent SBI Digital Asset Holdings survey of more than 50 Japanese financial institutions found that 76 % plan to invest in tokenized securities but view the lack of institutional-grade infrastructure as the main obstacle. Separately, Aave Labs on 27 August launched Horizon, an institutional lending market that allows qualified investors to borrow stablecoins, including USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD and Aave’s GHO, against tokenized U.S. Treasuries and other real-world assets. Horizon relies on Chainlink’s NAVLink feeds and plans to add Proof of Reserve and SmartAUM as the platform expands. The twin announcements highlight growing momentum behind on-chain finance in one of Asia’s most developed markets, underscoring both the demand from regulated institutions and the emerging role of Chainlink’s data and interoperability stack in bridging traditional assets with blockchain-based settlement.