Kaia Becomes Japan's Top JPYC Issuance Chain by Balance: The "LINE Economy" and a Korean Megabank Open an Asian Payments Corridor

Top Issuance Chain Achieved in Just One Month

JPYC is an electronic payment instrument under Japan's revised Payment Services Act, which took effect in October 2025. After obtaining a funds-transfer business license from the Financial Services Agency in August 2025, it expanded across Ethereum, Polygon, and Avalanche. In mid-May 2026, an update to its issuance/redemption platform "JPYC EX" added Kaia as a fourth chain. According to on-chain dashboard "JPYC info," the circulating balance on Kaia reached roughly 384 million JPYC at the time of reporting, surpassing Polygon's roughly 331 million JPYC—taking the top spot just one month after launch. Kaia is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 with one-second finality and gas-fee delegation; its speed and low cost are cited as drivers of the inflow.

Inside the "Top Spot": Largest Balance, Smallest User Base

The substance of this "leadership," however, warrants caution. JPYC's cumulative issuance exceeds JPY 3.3 billion (33億円), current total circulation is about 950 million JPYC, and it has roughly 19,000 user accounts and over 60,000 on-chain wallet addresses. Yet by holder count per chain, Polygon has about 36,000 addresses, Avalanche about 23,000, and Ethereum about 1,600, while Kaia has only about 850. In other words, Kaia's edge reflects large balances concentrated among a few addresses—pointing to a liquidity-pool or business-wallet-led structure rather than retail breadth. It is a textbook case of how a single metric can mask the underlying reality.

"LINE" as a Distribution Network of 200 Million MAU

Adoption is underpinned by integration with "Unifi," the Web3 wallet from LINE NEXT. Kaia was formed by merging the former Klaytn (Kakao-affiliated) and Finschia (LINE-affiliated) ecosystems, giving it an on-ramp via LINE's roughly 200 million monthly active users. Noritaka Okabe, CEO of JPYC Inc., stated that stablecoins have entered a phase where they take root in everyday life beyond mere experimentation. The essential point is that a chain with massive existing user touchpoints was chosen—over raw technical superiority.

The KB Kookmin Bank PoC Points to Cross-Border as the Real Prize

As part of its Asia push, Kaia ran a won-denominated stablecoin PoC with Korean megabank KB Kookmin Bank, payment firm KG Inicis, and digital-asset company OpenAsset. Beyond automating merchant settlement of QR payments via smart contracts, a Korea-to-Vietnam remittance—converting a won-pegged token into a USD-linked asset through on-chain liquidity and crediting a local bank account—was completed within three minutes at roughly 87% lower cost than SWIFT. In Korea, eight major banks including KB are preparing a won-stablecoin consortium, seeking a counterweight to a market 99% dominated by dollar-pegged coins (about USD 239 billion). The play is to establish a first-mover position—starting from the high-pain use case of cross-border remittance—ahead of finalized regulation.

[Business Development Insights]

1. Scrutinize the denominator behind any "No.1" claim. Kaia leads by circulating balance yet ranks last by holder count (about 850 addresses); the same "top spot" can imply opposite realities about adoption. New-business KPI design demands running multiple metrics in parallel—balance, count, active rate—and the discipline to keep verifying that an easy-to-promote single metric is not distorting the truth.
2. Distribution beats technical superiority in driving adoption. The main reason JPYC surged on Kaia among many chains was less about TPS or cost and more about riding LINE's existing touchpoint of 200 million MAU. Rather than racing to acquire users alone, designing integrations that "piggyback" on platforms with massive customer bases often determines how fast a new product ramps.
3. Start from a high-pain use case to seize a first-mover position before regulation settles. A clear cost advantage like ~87% savings over SWIFT in cross-border remittance creates an opening to establish real demand and operating capability via PoC even before rules are finalized. Keeping the customer-facing experience unchanged while swapping the settlement layer to blockchain is a proven B2B2C pattern for diffusing new technology without breaking UX.

[Sources]

• CoinPost, "Kaia, JPYC Circulation Tops 330M Yen, Becomes Japan's Top Issuance Chain" https://coinpost.jp/?p=718105
• KAIA DLT Foundation Press Release https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000023.000154579.html
• KAIA DLT Foundation, "Won-Stablecoin Technical Validation Completed with KB Kookmin Bank" https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000021.000154579.html
• JPYC Inc., "JPYC Goes Live on Kaia as First Additional Chain" https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000317.000054018.html
• Atarashii Keizai, "Kaia Takes Top JPYC Issuance-Chain Balance, Tops 330M Yen" https://www.neweconomy.jp/posts/584226
• NADA NEWS, "KB Kookmin Bank Completes Won-Stablecoin Technical Validation" https://www.nadanews.com/348990/
• cryptonews, "JPYC Circulation on Kaia Tops 330M Yen, Surpassing ETH and Polygon" https://cryptonews.com/jp/news/kaia-jpyc-circulation-surpasses-major-chains/
• VOIX biz, "Kaia Completes Won-Stablecoin Validation with KB Kookmin Bank" https://voix.jp/biz/news/169019/
• coinspeaker, "Eight Major Korean Banks to Issue Won Stablecoin in Early 2026" https://www.coinspeaker.com/jp/south-korea-banks-launch-won-stablecoin-consortium/