Tokyo Financial Giant to Launch Yen-Denominated Stablecoin, Challenging Dollar-Backed Dominance

Tokyo's financial establishment is making a power play. A major player—think megabank or trading house—is gearing up to launch a yen-pegged stablecoin, directly challenging the US dollar's stranglehold on the crypto payments world.

The Yen Enters the Arena

For years, stablecoins have been a dollar-dominated game. Tether and USD Coin rule the roost, acting as the de facto settlement layer for global crypto trades. This move flips the script, offering a digital asset anchored to Japan's currency instead. It's a strategic bid to capture regional trade flows and provide a familiar settlement option for Asia-Pacific markets.

Regulation First, Launch Second

This isn't some fly-by-night DeFi project. The launch is expected to follow Japan's recently clarified stablecoin regulations, giving it a legitimacy that many algorithmic or offshore coins lack. The issuer likely navigated the Financial Services Agency's (FSA) rules, ensuring redemption guarantees and proper reserve backing—a level of oversight that traditional finance types love to point out is missing elsewhere.

A Calculated Challenge to the Greenback

The goal is clear: carve out a niche where the yen is king. Think cross-border payments between Japanese corporations, remittances into the country, or serving as a less volatile gateway for local crypto traders. It bypasses the need to constantly convert to dollars first, potentially slicing costs and friction for yen-based commerce. It’s a direct challenge to the notion that digital finance must run on a digital dollar.

Will TradFi's Foray Move the Needle?

Skeptics might yawn—another big institution dipping a cautious toe in the crypto waters. But the play here is substantial. If successful, it could trigger a wave of other national currency stablecoins, fragmenting the market and offering real choice. It brings the fight for the future of money directly to the established corridors of power in Tokyo, London, and New York. The stablecoin wars just got a major new contender, proving that even in finance, sometimes the best way to compete is to print your own money—digitally, of course, and with full regulatory approval. After all, what's more traditional finance than creating a new instrument to capture fees on a legacy currency?

Startale recently put out its own stablecoin called Startale USD (USDSC)

This dollar-based digital currency works for payments, rewards, and liquidity on Soneium. The new yen stablecoin and USDSC will work together as a “complementary currency stack” for a planned 24/7 tokenized stock exchange that Startale and SBI are building.

“Our yen-denominated stablecoin is not just a means of everyday payment – it will play a central role in a fully on-chain world,” said Sota Watanabe, CEO of Startale. “In particular, we see enormous potential in enabling payments between AI agents and powering distributions for tokenized assets, both of which will soon become reality.”

This is not SBI’s first time working with stablecoins. In August, the company said it partnered with Ripple to bring Ripple USD (RLUSD) to Japan in 2026.

The project fits with efforts happening across Japan to build up a yen stablecoin market. Japan’s Financial Services Agency recently approved JPYC as the country’s first yen stablecoin. The agency also supports a joint stablecoin project from three major banks: Mizuho Bank, MUFG, and SMBC.

Many other big financial companies in Japan are moving into the yen stablecoin space

The Financial Services Agency recently approved a pilot program for a yen-backed stablecoin that includes three of Japan’s largest banking groups: Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Mizuho.

A person working in Japan’s crypto industry, who spoke to DL News without giving their name, said several other large financial groups are also preparing to issue yen stablecoins.

SBI and Startale have signed a memorandum of understanding for their coin. They say it will “operate as a global settlement currency” and work as money in the tokenized real-world assets space. Real-world assets, or RWAs, are mostly physical items like real estate and art whose ownership gets divided up and traded on blockchain networks.

The companies said they will finish “all necessary compliance” steps before launching. They said they “aim to offer a yen-denominated alternative in a stablecoin market now exceeding $300 billion in circulating supply and processing trillions of dollars in on-chain transactions annually.”

They pointed out that this market remains “heavily concentrated in US dollar assets.”

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