Ripple partner enters $300bn stablecoin race

SBI Holdings, a long-standing Ripple partner and Japanese securities giant, will launch a regulated Japanese yen-denominated stablecoin in the first half of next year.

The company, which has a $15 billion market cap and operates the SBI VC Trade crypto exchange, plans to launch the coin in the second quarter of financial year 2026, according to documents shared with DL News.

The company will work on the project with Startale Group, a blockchain startup that has previously worked on Ethereum layer 2 projects with the likes of Sony.

Yoshitaka Kitao, SBI’s chair and president, said in a statement that the firm will apply “Japan’s new stablecoin framework” to the cross-border settlement sector.

“By circulating [the coin] both domestically and globally, we aim to dramatically accelerate the movement toward providing digital financial services that are fully integrated with traditional finance,” said Kitao.

The announcement comes amid an end-of-year flurry of Japanese stablecoin-related activity, which began in late October with the startup JPYC releasing the country’s first Japan-based, fully regulated yen-pegged coin.

Yen-pegged stablecoins make up 0.02% of the global stablecoin market, according to data from DefiLlama.

SBI’s partnership with Ripple has seen the firms co-launch the crypto-powered banking services firm SBI Ripple Asia. In October, SBI announced a $200 million investment in the US-based XRP treasury firm Evernorth Holdings.

Japan’s stablecoin charge

Scores of other major financial industry players are jumping aboard the yen stablecoin bandwagon.

The Financial Services Agency, Japan’s top financial regulator, recently gave its blessing to a joint-yen-backed stablecoin pilot that involves three of the country’s biggest banking groups: Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui, and Mizuho.

A Japanese crypto industry insider, who asked DL News for anonymity, said several other large financial groups are also working on yen stablecoin issuance plans.

SBI and Startale say they have signed a memorandum of understanding deal for a coin that will “operate as a global settlement currency” and serve as a currency in the tokenised real-world assets space. Real-world assets, or RWAs, are predominantly tangible assets, such as real estate and works of art, whose ownership is distributed and traded on blockchain networks.

The companies said they intend to complete “all necessary compliance” measures prior to the launch. 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.”

This market, they noted, remains “heavily concentrated in US dollar assets.”

Crypto exchange’s role

SBI said it will take the lead on regulatory compliance and institutional distribution-related matters. It will circulate the coins on its SBI VC Trade platform.

The securities group said Shinsei Trust and Banking, the corporate financing arm of the SBI Shinsei Bank, one of SBI Holdings’ banking subsidiaries, will handle the new coin’s reserves.

Startale said it will take the lead on development, focusing on matters like smart contract design and security systems.

“We will do everything we can to make Japan the centre of the onchain revolution,” said Startale’s CEO Sota Watanabe.

“The transition to a token economy, where all real-world assets are tokenized, and tokens permeate society as a means of settlement, is now an irreversible societal trend,” said Kitao.

Tim Alper is a news correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email at tdalper@dlnews.com.