Iotrust and Cashmallow enter Japan’s yen stablecoin business

Iotrust and Cashmallow will jointly issue and operate a compliance-focused stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the Japanese yen.

On the 4th, the two companies said they are entering the yen-pegged stablecoin business based on the electronic payment instrument (EPI) framework under Japan’s amended Payment Services Act (PSA).

They said the initiative is meaningful in that it represents a case in which two Korean startups collaborate to directly issue and operate a fiat-backed stablecoin in the Japanese market.

Since the amended Payment Services Act took effect in 2023, Japan has defined stablecoins as electronic payment instruments (EPIs) and allows issuance of yen-pegged stablecoins only by banks, trust banks, and registered fund transfer service providers. Issuers must manage reserve assets in safe assets and comply with strict requirements such as disclosure, audits, and verification.

In this project, Cashmallow will leverage its license to handle business planning, regulatory reporting, and service operations. Iotrust will build the broader blockchain infrastructure—covering wallet architecture design, smart contract development, and node operations—based on its proprietary stablecoin issuance platform.

Beyond issuance, the partners aim to build a yen-denominated digital asset infrastructure encompassing deposits and withdrawals, peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, FX investment services across 23 currencies, online and offline payments, staking, and rewards. Over the mid to long term, they plan to expand into a payment and settlement platform integrating Web3 wallets with payment infrastructure, broadening the business into cross-border payments, real-world asset tokenization (RWA), and business-to-business (B2B) treasury and settlement solutions.

Baek Sang-su, CEO of Iotrust, said, “This project is a strategic milestone that extends the blockchain infrastructure capabilities accumulated through the D’CENT hardware wallet and the Wepin enterprise wallet into the fiat-backed stablecoin domain,” adding, “I hope that a Korean startup issuing a stablecoin in Japan will serve as an opportunity to demonstrate the global competitiveness of Korea’s blockchain industry.”