Creating a Wallet with Your National ID Card: MynaWallet's Public Launch and the Blueprint for Japan's Web3 Public Infrastructure

The Announcement: From Pilot to Daily Use

MynaWallet, Inc. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO Hiroyuki Tachibana) announced on July 21, 2026 the general release of its digital asset wallet app on the App Store and Google Play. Users verify their identity by tapping their My Number Card against their smartphone, and the app supports sending and receiving stablecoins and crypto assets, managing and transferring NFTs, and displaying asset value over time. Six chains are supported — Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Base, OP Mainnet and Arbitrum — with more to follow. The app runs on iOS 16.4 or later and Android (NFC Type-B capable devices), and wallet creation takes as little as one minute with a My Number Card, including the smartphone-embedded version. According to the company, of the roughly 100 million My Number Cards issued, about 8 million are smartphone-embedded as of June 26, 2026.

Three Technical Features: A Wallet Only Japan Could Build

The first feature is that it is a KYC-completed non-custodial wallet. Private keys remain with the user and the operator holds no assets, yet strict identity verification of the owner is completed via JPKI, the public personal authentication service using the electronic certificate stored on the My Number Card. This offers one answer to what has long been treated as a trade-off between the anonymity of self-custody and the identity verification regulators demand. Under its terms of service, the company does not collect or store the individual's My Number itself. The second feature is operator-sponsored gas. Gas fees for basic usage such as stablecoin and token transfers are sponsored, so users can start without pre-acquiring crypto assets (subject to conditions on chains, fee levels and usage counts). The third is account recovery: combining account abstraction (EIP-4337) with public personal authentication, accounts can be restored even if the device or passkey is lost — reinforcing self-custody's greatest weakness, the permanent loss of assets upon key loss, with public infrastructure.

The Groundwork: Institutional, Capital and Pilot Layers

The company's preparation has been methodical. On the capital side, it raised ¥200 million in a June 2025 seed round from gmjp holdings, a VC where Joi Ito serves as director, and Coincheck Group N.V., parent of the Coincheck exchange, announcing a business collaboration with Coincheck the same day. On the institutional side, it participates in councils led by the Digital Agency and the Cabinet Secretariat, contributing to policy design, and in October 2025 obtained ministerial certification for JPKI usage. On the pilot side, it has run in-store stablecoin QR payment trials with Digital Garage, JCB and Resona Holdings, a second-phase JPYC tap-payment trial with Sumitomo Mitsui Card using the My Number Card, and since January 2026 a joint study with Shizuoka Financial Group on issuing permissioned tokens on the Ethereum L2 Base. The general release, arriving amid the tailwinds of the amended Payment Services Act's stablecoin framework and the amended FIEA enacted on July 15, effectively declares the transition from pilot to social implementation.

What Comes Next: From Wallet to Institution-Linked Platform

The company outlines three directions: institution-linked use cases such as municipal digital regional currencies and benefit disbursements in stablecoins; a mini-app platform allowing third-party services to plug into its verified user base; and MynaPay, a tap and QR payment service using the My Number Card, currently in trials. The ambition is not a standalone wallet app but infrastructure for payments, disbursements and service connectivity built around a publicly authenticated user base, aiming to bridge the real economy and the digital asset economy.

Business Development Insights

1. A KYC-completed user base is a value proposition for those who connect to it. The envisioned mini-app platform could let third-party services reach regulation-compliant Web3 users at zero identity-verification cost. For companies weighing stablecoin payments, STOs, RWA or loyalty integration, connecting will at some point become faster and cheaper than building KYC in-house. Establishing a partner relationship now, while the platform is small, is worth considering to secure first-mover negotiating leverage.
2. Stablecoin disbursement of benefits and regional currency creates government-originated stablecoin demand. Conventional benefit distribution carries heavy transfer administration and premium-voucher printing costs, while regional digital currencies have struggled with proprietary app adoption. Direct disbursement to JPKI-verified wallets could simultaneously solve mistransfer, impersonation and administrative cost problems. For municipal solution vendors, regional financial institutions, and yen stablecoin issuers such as JPYC, this government disbursement rail could become a second demand source alongside private payments. The Shizuoka FG joint study deserves tracking as the leading regional-bank collaboration model.
3. "Public ID × non-custodial" is a design philosophy Japan can export. As the EU's eIDAS 2.0 digital identity wallet and national digital ID programmes advance, an implementation connecting a national ID card to self-custody via EIP-4337 is internationally advanced. The design also functions as a technical answer to the tension between anti-money-laundering and self-sovereign asset management — the very issue contested in the CLARITY Act's illicit finance provisions and the FATF Travel Rule. It holds high reference value as a compliance-native implementation when Japanese firms engage global regulators and financial institutions, and can be leveraged as a distinctly Japanese strength in those dialogues.

Sources

1. Atarashii Keizai, "MynaWallet, the Digital Asset Wallet Using the My Number Card, Begins General Availability" https://www.neweconomy.jp/posts/593868
2. PR TIMES / MynaWallet, Inc., "MynaWallet, the Digital Asset Wallet Using the My Number Card, Launches on the App Store and Google Play" https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000012.000125732.html
3. PR TIMES / MynaWallet, Inc., "MynaWallet Raises ¥200 Million in Seed Round" https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000004.000125732.html
4. CoinDesk JAPAN, "Coincheck and MynaWallet Collaborate — MynaWallet Raises ¥200M from Joi Ito's VC and Coincheck's Parent" https://www.coindeskjapan.com/298027/
5. Atarashii Keizai, "MynaWallet Partners with Coincheck, Raises ¥200 Million in Seed Round" https://www.neweconomy.jp/posts/476908
6. Plus Web3 media, "MynaWallet and Shizuoka FG Begin Joint Research on Digital Currency Issuance on Base" https://plus-web3.com/media/latestnews_1002_7114/
7. Atarashii Keizai, "Sumitomo Mitsui Card to Conduct Second-Phase Trial of JPYC Tap Payments Using the My Number Card" https://www.neweconomy.jp/posts/566990
8. MynaWallet, Inc. corporate site https://www.mynawallet.co.jp/