Japan: Yen-Pegged Stablecoin To Be Launched by Country’s Largest Bank

As more and more governments lean into crypto, many more private institutions and organizations are looking to capitalize on the acceptance as soon as possible. The best example of this is Japan where the biggest financial institution of the country has delved into something similar.

The ‘Progmacoin’

Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, the trust arm of the financial group, one of the ‘Three Great Houses’ of the Mitsubishi Group, is actively looking to issue their own Yen-pegged stablecoin. 

The announcement from the company, reported by Nikkei today, is aiming for the stablecoin named ‘Progmacoin’ to be issued by 2023. The stablecoin will serve the purpose of clearing and settling digital securities transactions pertaining to the bank.

The idea of using a stablecoin for the digital securities’ transactions is born out of the need to settle transactions quicker for the bank’s upcoming SBI holdings partnered digital stock exchange. This platform is scheduled to be launched in the spring, this year in a competition to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

An additional settlement layer will also potentially reduce the cost of transactions on the exchange. 

Not the First Stablecoin

Japan is observing a rapid growth in terms of digital currencies with the ‘Progmacoin’ technically being the third announced stablecoin. Apart from the central bank’s very own digital currency which is said to be backed with the Japanese Yen, another gold-pegged stablecoin was announced recently.

The digital currency known as ZipangCoin was announced by the trading company Mitsui & Co. and the coin is scheduled to be available for trading as soon as this month. 

This digital currency although dubbed stablecoin will not be worth 1:1 with the Yen but instead pegged 1:1 with 1 gram of gold, the value of which is approximately JPY 6,322.91 or 54.96 USD.

On the crypto front, the country is witnessing the arrival of international players with crypto exchange FTX buying Japan-based crypto exchange Liquid recently.

All these developments are evidence of Japan’s exceptional rise in the crypto space.