SBI and US Circle to establish joint venture; USDC transactions to begin on the 26th

SBI Holdings and Circle, the US company that issues the US dollar-backed stablecoin USDC (USD Coin), announced on the 25th that they have signed an agreement to establish a joint venture. The joint venture will promote the expansion of USDC in the Japanese market.

SBI Holdings Chairman and President Yoshitaka Kitao commented at a press conference, "We felt that we had to develop a dollar-denominated stablecoin at this time. We recognized that it was more urgent to promote dollar-denominated stablecoins than Japanese yen stablecoins." He said that dollar-denominated stablecoins are necessary to solve the problems of the United States and other countries, and that SBI Holdings will fully support USDC, which is issued in a manner that complies with regulations.

SBI Holdings will also focus on cryptocurrency lending services that utilize stablecoins. It aims to develop the foreign currency deposit market, which is said to be worth 6 trillion yen. In addition, it will also begin using USDC for payment cards, foreign exchange transactions, and trade settlements.

Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, said, "We believe that Japan will become one of the world's leading markets for stablecoins by establishing stablecoin regulations," and noted, "We aim to be the world's number one dollar stablecoin in both name and reality." He said he was "proud" to be able to enter the Japanese market with a strong partner like SBI Holdings, and added, "We will meet the needs of the expanding digital economy in Japan and establish ourselves as a safe and transparent dollar-denominated stablecoin."

Circle also revealed that domestic cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance Japan, bitbank, and bitFlyer are also planning to handle USDC. Coincheck, another domestic cryptocurrency exchange, announced efforts to handle USDC in February last year, but this was not mentioned in this announcement.

These exchanges are also expected to start handling USDC as soon as they complete their registration for "electronic payment instruments trading business" under the Payment Services Act.

Allaire said that once these exchanges begin trading the cryptocurrency, “users in the Japanese market will have greater access to dollar-denominated stablecoins,” expressing his hope that this will come to fruition soon.

Given the strengthening of cooperation with SBI, do you have plans to issue a Japanese yen stablecoin as Circle in the future?

Allaire: Not at this time. However, I think there is a big opportunity. We can also be an important partner for companies that issue or want to issue Japanese yen stablecoins.

We want to strengthen our cooperation with major Japanese yen stablecoin projects to promote the development of the financial system through the Internet. The Internet is an important part of the system.

In the United States, various movements in the Web 3.0 field have accelerated since President Trump took office. In that context, what role will Allaire and Circle play?

Allaire: We believe that we are already providing important technology and becoming an important issuer of digital assets in the Web 3.0 economy.

As Web 3.0 grows around the world and there are more approaches from the United States, many projects are being born. We believe that this will create a great opportunity for people developing various products and services to incorporate our technology into their applications.

So we believe that Circle is already playing a big role. It is important to create technology in the world. We will continue to shoulder this heavy responsibility in the future.

Image: Iolite

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