Tokyo financial giant to launch Yen-denominated stablecoin to compete with dollar-backed coins

A major Tokyo-based financial company that has been a long-term backer of Ripple is now joining forces with Startale Group to launch a Yen-denominated stablecoin.

SBI Holdings and Startale Group plan to release the stablecoin in the second quarter of 2026. The partnership brings together SBI’s standing as a key player in Japan’s financial sector with Startale’s background in Web3 technology. Startale helped build the Soneium network, which has backing from Sony.

“The transition to a ‘token economy’ is now an irreversible societal trend,” said Yoshitaka Kitao, Chairman and President of SBI Holdings. “By circulating it both domestically and globally, we aim to dramatically accelerate the movement toward providing digital financial services that are fully integrated with traditional finance.”

The stablecoin has not been named yet. Both companies say it will be fully regulated and designed for worldwide settlement and use by institutions.

Shinsei Trust & Banking, which operates under SBI Shinsei Bank, will manage the creation and redemption of the digital currency. SBI VC Trade, a licensed crypto exchange service provider, will handle its circulation.

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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