Yen Stablecoin Competition Shifts from Issuance to Use-Case Capture: 26 Participants Join EJPY Pilot as a Free Program Reveals the Adoption Playbook

What Has Started

On September 24, Japan Blockchain Foundation announced that it had launched the "Stablecoin Pilot Partners" program in September 2026. Since recruitment opened, 26 companies and organizations have committed to participate. Sixteen have been disclosed so far, including Toshiba, SCSK, QUICK, Seiko Solutions, Asahi Broadcasting Group Holdings, Hachijuni Nagano Bank, Loyalty Marketing, Tranzax, Tobu Top Tours and Tagawa City in Fukuoka Prefecture. The remaining 10 will be announced progressively after coordination. The areas under study are broad: domestic remittances and payments, cross-border payments, settlement of RWAs (real-world assets) and security tokens, payments within Web3 services, and payments in regional economies.

Three Forms of Free Support

Participants receive three forms of support: study sessions on laws and the latest developments, individual consultations tailored to each business model, and a testing environment using EJPY test coins and wallets on JOC. Notably, the announcement states explicitly that participation is limited to exploring use cases and does not constitute any decision or declaration by participants to issue, handle or commercialize a stablecoin. At this stage, the 26 are best understood as participants gathered to explore, not as customers who have committed to adoption.

Where EJPY and JOC Fit

EJPY is a trust-based yen stablecoin whose issuance policy was formally decided on May 13, with issuance planned on JOC and Ethereum. The goal is to begin issuance and circulation on JOC within fiscal 2026, though the specific timing, issuance terms and handling intermediaries will be decided after consultation with the authorities. JOC is a fully Ethereum-compatible public chain whose validators (operators that approve blocks) are Japanese companies, including Dentsu, pixiv and Hatena. Among the program participants, CAC and insprout are also JOC validators. This is a vertically integrated strategy in which the chain's operator issues its own stablecoin to generate payment demand on the chain.

A Crowded Field of Yen Digital Payment Instruments

In Japan, JPYC is already in circulation, and the number of aspiring issuers is growing, including JPYSC, a trust-based coin developed by SBI Group and Startale, and DeltaForesight, which is developing the crypto-asset-type JPYdf and has raised more than JPY 300 million to date. On September 25, the Digital Currency Innovation Organization, which counts former Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda among its members, held a launch press conference centered on tokenized deposits and will begin full operations in October. As the number of issuers grows, the value for users shifts from "which coin" to "which business processes it can be used in." The free pilot program is a move to secure those use cases first.

What the Participant Mix Reveals

The participant mix gives shape to concrete use cases: Loyalty Marketing in points programs, Tranzax in supply-chain finance using electronically recorded monetary claims, Tobu Top Tours in travel, the regional lender Hachijuni Nagano Bank, and the municipality of Tagawa City. The focus is on areas where existing payment methods still leave problems with fees and processing time, such as point conversion, business-to-business payments and regional payments. Meanwhile, no operators with large consumer payment networks appear among the disclosed participants so far.

[Business Development Insights]

1. The competitive axis for yen stablecoins has moved from issuance to capturing use cases. When issuers proliferate, the camp that gets into corporate workflows first, through free pilots and test environments, will control circulation volume. Companies considering stablecoin businesses will get a better return by deciding early which camp's use-case development to join, rather than pursuing issuance themselves.
2. Vertical integration of chain and issuer creates a dependency risk on a specific chain for user companies. Although EJPY also plans Ethereum support, an interoperability layer that selects transfer routes across multiple yen instruments, such as JPYC, JPYSC and tokenized deposits, and handles regulatory compliance in one place will become essential. This is a clear business opportunity.
3. For regional banks and municipalities, this is a low-cost way to keep options open. By testing regional payment use cases in a free pilot, as Hachijuni Nagano Bank and Tagawa City are doing, they can decide on the basis of real data whether to issue their own instrument, act as distributors, or opt for tokenized deposits.

[Sources]

Japan Blockchain Foundation, "Japan Blockchain Foundation launches 'Stablecoin Pilot Partners' program for social implementation of stablecoins" (Sept 24, 2026) https://www.jbfd.org/news/stablecoin-poc-partners

CoinPost, "Yen stablecoin EJPY: 26 firms including Toshiba join pilot" (Sept 25, 2026) https://coinpost.jp/?p=739378

CoinPost, "Japan Blockchain Foundation to issue trust-based stablecoin EJPY" (May 13, 2026) https://coinpost.jp/?p=708261

PR TIMES, Japan Blockchain Foundation (EJPY issuance decision, May 13, 2026) https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000059.000117597.html

CoinPost, "New organization promoting tokenized deposits to launch in October, with former BOJ Governor Kuroda" (Sept 25, 2026) https://coinpost.jp/?p=739073

CoinPost press release, "DeltaForesight raises over JPY 300 million via J-KISS" (Sept 25, 2026) https://coinpost.jp/?post_type=pressrelease&p=739019

Japan Open Chain official website https://www.japanopenchain.org/