Coincheck Group N.V. Ordinary Shares 2027 Q1 Earnings Call

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. Last quarter, I laid out an evolution in how we think about the company. From a holding company with a collection of independent businesses to one unified synergistic business serving both retail and institutional clients. In this quarter, I want to show you that this is no longer just a concept, but it's actually happening. The clearest way to see it is through our three-legged stool. Our platform stands on three connected legs. Crypto-as-a-Service, which embeds our rails inside trusted partners. Asset management, which seeks to convert customer balances into higher value institutional-grade revenue. Custody, the trust layer that underpins the whole thing. Three legs, one stool. Critically, all three are anchored to the same opportunity, to fully unlock the Japanese crypto market. Let me take you each in turn.

Our first leg is Crypto-as-a-Service, and this is where our momentum is most visible today. Our partnership with Mercari remains our first production Crypto-as-a-Service deployment. Millions of customers can now access digital assets, 15 supported cryptocurrencies directly inside a consumer marketplace app they already open every day. It's been running live since June. This is the model working exactly as designed. Trusted partner brings the customers, and we power the flow underneath. Our partnership with KDDI has advanced further. Following their 14.9% equity investment in Coincheck Group, we're now moving forward on mutual customer referrals across both ecosystems as contemplated in our business alliance agreement with KDDI that was signed in May at the time of the investment agreement.

KDDI is one of Japan's largest telecommunications companies, its au mobile brand serves an ecosystem of nearly 40 million users, representing one of the most significant consumer on-ramps to digital assets in the country. We recently added Credit Saison, one of Japan's most established financial institutions, with a customer base of approximately 33 million. Together, we intend to give Saison card members new ways to access crypto through points and loyalty programs, integrated payments, and jointly developed products. Because we don't compete with any of our Crypto-as-a-Service partners' core businesses, they can easily plug in without handing an advantage to a rival, and every channel we add can ultimately make us more valuable. This is Crypto-as-a-Service compounding in real time. Our second leg is asset management, where our wins have demonstrated genuine institutional leadership.

In Canada, Dynamic Funds, a Scotiabank subsidiary, selected 3iQ as sub-adviser on their dynamic, active multi-crypto ETF listed on Cboe Canada. This means that a tier 1 Canadian bank chose our institutional capability to bring crypto to their clients at scale. In Asia, 3iQ has been appointed to manage a portion of Bhutan's Bitcoin treasury. Being entrusted with a sovereign nation's reserves is a significant responsibility and one we take seriously. It is also a clear signal of our credibility 3iQ brings to the group the kind of mandate that can open doors globally. From a Canadian bank to a sovereign initiative, these are mandates that establish us as a trusted institutional manager. It's the second leg of our stool. The third leg is custody, the most important development this quarter is the clarity taking shape in Japan's regulatory and market structure around institutional custody.

We think Japan is building one of the clearest institutional custody frameworks in the world for digital assets. Custody of consumer assets already sits within a well-defined regulatory structure. With that said, the regulators are now actively working to raise the bar. Following the JFSA's April 2026 policy for strengthening cybersecurity in crypto asset exchange services, an FSA commission study published this quarter is now informing of revisions to the supervisory guidelines. It's deepening the standards for key management, audit operations, and third-party risk and aligning them with international frameworks. For institutions, this is exactly the signal they've been waiting for. Custody in Japan is becoming a more regulated, auditable, trust bank-grade discipline. This plays directly in our strengths. We've operated a licensed security-first exchange in Japan since 2019.

We are built around the segregation and key management standards these guidelines are raising, we are actively working and seeking to develop the institutional-grade custody capability that lets a Japanese trust bank or qualified institutional investor engage with digital assets with confidence. As the framework crystallizes, custody shifts from a barrier to a bridge, we intend to be on the right side of it. With Crypto-as-a-Service driving volume, asset management proving our leadership, custody clarity arriving in Japan, the platform's third leg is coming into place. Let me explain why all three legs converge on Japan, why the position we seek to establish in Japan should be difficult to replicate. Let's start with how things in Japan are today. Japan is one of the world's most important regulated crypto markets. It's also a cash-heavy economy.

Nearly half of households' financial assets, over JPY 1,100 trillion, still sit in cash and deposits. Government policy over two decades has been slowly pushing households from savings towards investments. That enormous pool of capital may only now be beginning to move. What's changing now is more regulatory clarity, and we think this is the primary catalyst. Japan is moving from a Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the FIEA. In plain terms, this repositions crypto from a payment instrument to a financial product. It's aligned with Japan's national agenda of asset formation. Think of it as a 3-stage roadmap. Stage 1 is developing a path for traditional financial institutions to be able to participate through revised rules and guidelines. Stage 2 opens institutional product channels, spot crypto ETFs, and inclusion in investment trust and fund wrappers.

Stage 3 brings tax treatment closer to other financial assets, which will be significantly more favorable to crypto investors than the current tax rates which apply. Crucially, as lower separate tax rates make it more advantageous to trade, we would expect it to lift the trading activity and volumes across the market. The question is no longer whether Japan regulates crypto. It is what may open next and when. Here's why we think we win as those doors open. We've held the number 1 downloaded crypto app in Japan for seven consecutive years. That's not a popularity contest. It's proof that we've cleared Japan's highest barrier to entry, and we've stayed. We did so in a market where global majors entered and pulled back.

We built our base before the doors actually fully opened, so that when household money begins to move into crypto, the home is already there. On the institutional side, appetite is turning as well. In a recent Nomura-affiliated survey, roughly 79% of Japanese institutions said they plan to invest in digital assets within three years, with diversification, not speculation, as their primary driver. The potential inflow could reach a JPY trillion order. Now, connect this back to our stools. Over the next 18 months, our plan is to build and strengthen all three legs, specifically to capture this unlock we're seeing unfold. Crypto-as-a-Service, together with our organic growth, should capture the retail flow as household money moves. Asset management should capture institutional allocations as product channels open. Custody should capture the trust that lets Japan's regulated institutions participate. One large asset pool, three legs in.

That's the deliberate sequence I described last quarter. Prove the model, scale what we've proven, then expand beyond our core. Everything I've walked through today is phase 1 starting to become visible. It brings me to where we go from here. We came into this year as four businesses. We're leaving this quarter closer to being one diversified platform offering. The integration of Aplo and NFT is nearly complete, and that work has moved faster than we expected back when we set the plan in April. This means to us that we need one unifying name and brand. So we're also working this quarter on a new name and brand for our unified platform offering that is coming together, and we expect it to be revealed and rolled out later this calendar year.

To close, our three legs are all in place and all pointed at the same goal. Crypto-as-a-Service is compounding across trusted partners today. Asset management is winning institutional mandates from Canada to Bhutan. On custody, Japan's regulatory and structural framework is maturing in exactly the direction that favors a licensed security-first operator like us. Japan's regulatory arc is moving in our favor, and we've cleared the initial barrier to entry years ago. I'm confident in the strategy, excited about the opportunity ahead, and committed to delivering value to our shareholders as we build Coincheck Group into the global platform of choice for digital finance. With that, I'll turn it over to Jason, our CFO, for a review of our financial results.

Thank you. Thank you, Pascal.