Japan Megabanks Plan 2026 Stablecoin, Morpho Raises $175M, 60 CEOs Back CLARITY Act

Crypto News

The Bank of Japan published a summary document on June 10 reviewing its central bank digital currency forum, organizing 84 separate meetings held since July 2023 into a functional breakdown of digital yen design questions. The companion report, released alongside the pilot programme progress update, walks through unresolved topics including ledger architecture, where officials weighed centralized control against a split-management model on resilience and single-point-of-failure grounds. It also covered identity verification, an exemption from checks on transactions under 100,000 yen, and offline settlement. Some 64 firms participated as of March 2024. From fiscal 2026 the seven working groups will consolidate into three discussion groups for broader blockchain payment review.

In Japan's Game-Fi sector, the Snap-to-Earn title SNPIT confirmed a collaboration with VIRTUAL G-SHOCK, bringing the watch brand's toughness concept onto its in-game camera NFTs. Developer GALLUSYS said holders can use limited G-SHOCK Mint Scrolls to generate special G-SHOCK Camera NFTs that, unlike standard cameras, never break regardless of shooting volume and never incur repair costs. The cameras also carry an automatic timestamp feature for shared photos. Two scroll tiers go on sale: a Common run of 1,000 units priced at 3,000 yen in SNPT, and an Uncommon run of 500 units at 4,500 yen. Sales run across two phases from June 17 through June 25.

Japan's three largest banking groups, MUFG, Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho, are preparing to jointly issue a fiat-pegged stablecoin within fiscal 2026. The three lenders intend to secure the registration required to handle electronic payment instruments and issue through a trust bank acting as trustee, soon signing a basic agreement and forming a study council open to wider participation later. Once live, investors would be able to purchase stocks, bonds and investment funds using the bank-issued token, with corporate settlement also envisioned. The project builds on a Financial Services Agency Payment Innovation Project trial selected in November 2025, with Nomura and Daiwa exploring securities-settlement linkage.

In Washington, more than 60 crypto executives sent a joint letter on June 9 to Senate leaders John Thune and Chuck Schumer, urging passage of the CLARITY market-structure bill in its current form, with developer protections intact. Signatories including Coinbase's Brian Armstrong, Block's Jack Dorsey and Solana Labs' Anatoly Yakovenko argued that legal certainty is essential for anyone building community-driven software, from Bitcoin core development to new DeFi smart contracts. The disputed Section 604 shields developers who do not control customer funds. The House passed the bill 294-134 in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15-9 in May 2026, but a 60-vote filibuster threshold remains.

The Morpho Association closed one of the largest funding rounds in decentralized lending history, raising $175 million in a round co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto and Ribbit. Apollo Funds, Circle Ventures, VanEck and Ledger Cathay joined as strategic investors, alongside Japan's SBI Group, Wintermute Ventures and HashKey. The association framed the raise around rising demand for open, programmable credit infrastructure as finance migrates onchain, calling it among the biggest DeFi rounds ever. Co-founder Paul Frambot said the protocol is building an open credit network connecting global lenders and borrowers; deposits across Morpho's onchain lending markets now exceed $11 billion, its fourth institutional round since 2021.

Anthropic began general availability of its Claude Fable 5 model on June 9, alongside a restricted release of Claude Mythos 5 for cyber-defense partners through its Project Glasswing programme. Fable 5 is positioned as a safety-hardened version of the company's high-end Mythos-class system, reportedly leading nearly all tested benchmarks, with the limited Mythos variant described as the strongest cybersecurity model available. Requests touching cybersecurity, biology or chemistry are automatically routed to the older Claude Opus 4.8 when flagged, a guardrail Anthropic says fires in under five percent of sessions. Pricing is set at $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output tokens.

Across these stories a single arc emerges: institutional rails are being laid faster than the regulatory and risk environment can absorb. Bank consortiums, CBDC frameworks and a record onchain-credit raise all point to deepening infrastructure, yet COINOTAG's aggregate market data shows sentiment moving the other way. Our Fear and Greed Index sits at 9 out of 100, deep in Extreme Fear, while Bitcoin dominance has climbed to 70.3 percent and total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.76 trillion, signaling defensive rotation into majors. The primary sources confirm the building continues regardless, with the official Bank of Japan document, FSA trial selections and Morpho's own disclosure anchoring a structural, not speculative, expansion phase.