JPYC's First Year: JPY 12 Billion Issued, JPY 3 Billion in Circulation — What the 4x Gap Between "Cumulative" and "Outstanding" Says About the Break-Even of a Yen Stablecoin

Year-one numbers and a CEO who says the coin is "not growing"

JPYC Inc. began issuing JPYC on October 27, 2025, the first stablecoin issued by a registered funds-transfer provider in Japan. The figures reported at the one-year mark are cumulative issuance above JPY 12 billion (one outlet cites JPY 12.1 billion as of October 23), roughly JPY 3 billion in circulation (JPY 3.2 billion in the same outlet), more than 28,000 accounts on the JPYC EX platform, and over 150 merchants. The coin launched on Ethereum, Avalanche and Polygon, with Kaia added in May 2026 for a total of four chains.

The trajectory shows a back-loaded year. Cumulative issuance crossed JPY 2.5 billion on May 18, 2026 and JPY 10 billion on September 18. The acceleration came mainly from arbitrage demand after JPYC listed on Korea's Upbit on September 17; circulation briefly swelled to about JPY 4.2 billion before falling back to around JPY 3 billion. Okabe told Nikkei the business is currently in the red and that circulation of JPY 50–100 billion is needed to turn a profit. In another interview he said, candidly, that he does not consider the coin to be growing, and set a target of roughly tenfold circulation in year two.

What the 4x gap between JPY 12 billion issued and JPY 3 billion outstanding means

Cumulative issuance is the total yen converted into JPYC through JPYC EX over the year; circulation is what remains unredeemed at a point in time. The roughly JPY 9 billion difference is essentially the amount redeemed back into yen. Three quarters of everything issued came back within a year, which marks JPYC as a pass-through payment medium rather than a store of balances. The company's May disclosure of over JPY 35 billion in total transaction volume against JPY 2.5 billion cumulative issuance, and a daily asset turnover above 100% of liquidity, points to the same character.

This cuts both ways. For remittance, payments and refunds, velocity is the product itself. AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings' plan to pay roughly 2,300 subcontractors in JPYC, the tax-refund service launched November 1 by Nihon Menzei and UPBOND paying inbound tourists in JPYC on Avalanche, and the AI-agent payment gateway x402 Inc. announced on October 30 all assume the recipient spends or redeems promptly. But the issuer's revenue is proportional to outstanding balances through reserve yield, so faster turnover translates poorly into revenue. Use-case growth and balance growth do not point in the same direction, and that is the economic structure year one laid bare.

Decomposing break-even: why JPY 50–100 billion

JPYC charges no issuance or redemption fees, so revenue comes solely from yield on reserves held in deposits and short-term Japanese government bonds. At launch the company said it would hold JGBs and deposits 50/50 initially, move JGBs toward 80%, assume a yield of about 1%, and target JPY 10 trillion outstanding within three years with roughly JPY 100 billion in profit (1% of balances). Applied to today's JPY 3 billion, that assumption yields around JPY 30 million (USD 190,000) a year. Applying the same 1% to the stated break-even range of JPY 50–100 billion gives JPY 500 million to 1 billion (USD 3.2–6.5 million) annually, which can be read as the company's approximate annual operating cost. For an issuer running AML/CFT as a licensed funds-transfer provider, smart contracts on four chains, legal and compliance staff and audits, fixed costs in the hundreds of millions of yen are plausible, and the plan to raise the JGB share to thicken yield is consistent with it. The roughly JPY 6 billion raised in Series B is best understood as capital to carry that fixed cost until balances scale.

Still, the break-even target of JPY 50–100 billion is only 0.5–1% of the JPY 10 trillion ambition announced at launch. The three-year plan has effectively receded, and the anniversary numbers reframe the question as how far a zero-fee, yield-dependent model can build balances under the regulatory issuance cap of JPY 1 million per transaction with no rapid repeat issuance.

Trust-type JPYSC by the numbers, and where the megabank project sits

The clearest comparator is JPYSC, the trust-type stablecoin issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank. As of September 7, 2026 it had about JPY 20.1 billion outstanding, or about JPY 27 billion including JPY 6.9 billion in lending applications, six to nine times JPYC's circulation; a figure of about JPY 20.07 billion is cited for September 30. Under amended rules effective June 2026, trust-type issuers may invest up to 50% of reserves in short-term JGBs maturing within three months or time deposits, and SBI Shinsei Trust has begun investing JPY 1 billion in short-term JGBs. JPYC, as a funds-transfer-type issuer, must fully secure outstanding obligations but has more room to raise its JGB share. In short, JPYSC leads on balances while JPYC may lead on yield per unit of balance, but for both, balances remain the denominator of revenue.

Meanwhile MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation ran a July 2026 pilot of a jointly issued trust-type stablecoin for Mitsubishi Corporation's cross-border settlements and aim for live transactions within fiscal 2026. If bank client bases ride a trust scheme with no circulation ceiling, corporate settlement balances will tend to gather there. JPYC's differentiation lies in small-ticket, high-frequency use by individuals and SMEs, and in technical lead such as EIP-3009 compatibility for agent payments. The year-one figures ask whether JPYC can bring mechanisms that convert velocity into revenue, such as payment-side fees or adjacent services, into year two.

[Business Development Insights]

1. In payment use cases where velocity rather than balances grows, an issuer's reserve-yield model is hard to sustain. Companies building on JPYC should treat the issuer's zero-fee policy as a conditional assumption and check contract terms for future fee introduction.
2. With trust-type JPYSC more than six times ahead on balances and the three megabanks entering corporate settlement, the funds-transfer type's edge lies in freedom over JGB allocation and fit for retail, small-ticket and agent payments. Enterprises should choose an issuer type based on whether their own cash flows are dwell-type or pass-through, not on headline balances.
3. Tax refunds, subcontractor payments and agent payments are all designed for recipients to redeem or re-spend immediately, and add nothing to JPYC balances. Service providers in this category should design incentives to hold JPYC (lending, points integration) alongside the use case, or they import the issuer's sustainability risk into their own service.

[Sources]

https://coinpost.jp/?p=745104 https://jp.bloomingbit.io/feed/news/123033 https://www.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2058390.html https://www.businessinsider.jp/article/2510jpyc-company-begins-issuance-of-jpyc-stablecoin/ https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000319.000054018.html https://dime.jp/company_news/detail/?pr=2714307 https://ascii.jp/elem/000/004/402/4402643/ https://coinpost.jp/?p=738488 https://innovatopia.jp/tech-economy/tech-economynews/118028/ https://coinpost.jp/?p=730027 https://www.lnews.jp/2026/07/s0722503.html https://www.sbigroup.co.jp/news/pdf/group/2026/0907_a.pdf https://coinpost.jp/?p=736076 https://www.bk.mufg.jp/news/news2026/pdf/news0610.pdf https://www.bk.mufg.jp/news/news2026/pdf/news1016_1.pdf https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000081.000065959.html https://coinpost.jp/?p=744168 https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000006.000188987.html https://www.iima.or.jp/docs/webinar/2025/251128_Shibata.pdf https://www.jri.co.jp/page.jsp?id=110973