SBI Launches JPYSC Yen Stablecoin Lending at 3% Annual Yield

Crypto News

Japanese financial giant SBI is opening lending for its yen-pegged JPYSC stablecoin at a 3% annual yield, the first such product tied to the token. SBI VC Trade will begin accepting applications on July 16 for a fixed 12-week term, letting JPYSC holders earn a 3% annual percentage yield by lending out their balances. According to the company’s official announcement, the launch comes less than a month after JPYSC went live. It is a centralized counterpart to the yield mechanics popularized by decentralized lending protocols such as Aave. JPYSC is Japan’s first yen-pegged stablecoin issued with trust-bank backing, a structure SBI says lowers transaction costs and supports large-value transfers.

Convenience-store chain Lawson is moving to test yen stablecoin payments at the checkout. HashPort said on July 13 that it had signed a basic agreement on July 10 with KDDI and Lawson to trial in-store settlement in August at the Lawson Takanawa Gateway City outlet. The pilot connects HashPort’s non-custodial crypto wallet to Lawson’s standard point-of-sale terminals, measuring checkout time, register operations and usability. The official statement did not name the token, though reporting points to JPYC, Japan’s first legally recognized yen-pegged coin. Access is limited to select employees of the three companies rather than the general public during this phase.

United States stablecoin issuer Circle secured final approval to establish a federally chartered trust bank, to operate as Circle National Trust. The charter lets the USDC issuer bring custody and settlement functions in-house under national oversight, a notable step as regulators tighten expectations for dollar-backed tokens. The move fits a wider pattern in which stablecoin operators seek bank-grade regulatory footing rather than relying solely on third-party custodians. For Japan-facing markets, where SBI VC Trade became the first domestic venue to handle USDC, Circle’s expanding regulatory perimeter reinforces the token’s institutional credentials as issuers race to formalize reserves and governance under mounting supervisory scrutiny.

Tokenization platform Progmat completed its integration with the Avalanche network, migrating more than 452 billion yen of digital securities onto the chain. The transfer, worth over 3 billion dollars, ranks among the larger real-world-asset migrations disclosed in Japan and underscores how quickly regulated security tokens are moving to public-chain infrastructure. Progmat, backed by major Japanese financial institutions, has positioned itself as core plumbing for the country’s tokenized-bond and digital-securities market. The scale of the migration signals that institutional issuers are comfortable settling substantial regulated assets on Avalanche, a shift that broadens the addressable market for compliant on-chain finance well beyond pilot-stage volumes.

Domestic exchange bitFlyer is preparing to list three additional altcoins: TRON (TRX), Cosmos (ATOM) and XDC Network (XDC). The additions widen retail access to layer-1 and interoperability-focused networks that have largely traded on offshore venues, and they arrive as Japanese exchanges compete to broaden their catalogs under the country’s licensing regime. Adding ATOM brings exposure to the Cosmos interoperability ecosystem, while XDC targets trade-finance and enterprise settlement use cases. New domestic listings typically expand the pool of yen-denominated liquidity for these tokens, and the timing reflects steady appetite among Japanese platforms to court traders despite broadly cautious market sentiment.

The lending launch is one piece of SBI’s aggressive on-chain expansion. In June the group acquired major Japanese exchange Bitbank for close to 289 million dollars, and it recently became the sole investor in crypto risk-modeling firm Gauntlet’s 125 million dollar Series C round. SBI also took part exclusively in a 76 million dollar Series C for institutional trading venue EDX Markets. A company spokesperson framed the strategy as building a full stack spanning exchanges, asset tokenization and market platforms. Taken together, the deals show SBI assembling infrastructure across the trading, custody and issuance layers rather than betting on any single product line.

These developments trace a single arc: Japan is industrializing stablecoins and tokenized assets while the broader market stays defensive. Our reading of COINOTAG’s aggregate data underscores the divergence — the Fear and Greed Index sits at 22 out of 100, deep in Extreme Fear, and Bitcoin dominance holds at 69.6% as total crypto market capitalization hovers near 1.8 trillion dollars. Capital is concentrating in Bitcoin even as builders push regulated yen rails, lending yields and real-world-asset settlement forward. The signal we take is that Japan’s institutional groundwork is advancing on a separate clock from speculative price action, positioning yen stablecoins as durable payment and yield infrastructure.