Tourism pilot begins with JPYC payments for APA Hotel guests

Startale Japan, the Japanese arm of the Startale Group, and Hakuhodo Key3 announced on October 5 that they will begin soliciting subscriptions on October 6 for the "Stablecoin Adoption Bond," a digital corporate bond that pays interest and redeems in JPYSC, Japan's first trust-type yen-denominated stablecoin. The issuer is Startale Japan, the offering amount is 99.9 million yen, and the interest rate is 5% per year, with the bonds offered to individual investors. On October 7, the Financial Services Agency updated its caution page on transactions with unregistered operators, adding the operators of IZAKA-YA and Bybit and others to its warning list of crypto-asset exchange operators. On October 6, nine companies including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation announced that they had completed the first two phases of Project Trinity, a proof-of-concept experiment to settle digital securities with stablecoins, verifying a delivery-versus-payment method that transfers securities and payment simultaneously. On October 8, the Ministry of Finance held the first meeting of its Study Group on On-Chain Government Bonds, which discusses the tokenization of government bonds, as scheduled, and published explanatory materials organizing on-chain government bond initiatives into three categories. In an October 5 speech, Michael S. Selig, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, explained the joint interpretation of crypto assets compiled by the CFTC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, expressing the view that Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and others are "in principle not securities."

SoFi Technologies is working with Orbi and Mastercard on new crypto-linked payment cards in Mexico, with the Orbi program using SoFi Tech Solutions infrastructure to support crypto-to-fiat card spending for Mexican consumers. The partnership plugs SoFi Tech Solutions into issuing, authorization, processing and compliance for the cards, with SoFi providing Mastercard BIN sponsorship and connectivity to the Mexico Domestic Switch. Orbi customers can spend from either fiat or crypto balances, with SoFi's stack handling point-of-sale conversion so merchants are always paid in local currency. The launch creates a potential path for stablecoin-powered remittance products built on SoFi's technology in Latin America, and the company said the Orbi and Mastercard program in Mexico only captures part of what SoFi is building out. A key factor to watch will be whether SoFi Tech Solutions secures additional Latin American card programs or remittance products that also adopt SoFiUSD, especially through Mastercard's network, with multiple issuers going live over the next 12 to 24 months indicating that Orbi is a template rather than a one-off experiment.

Coinbase Global is expanding its stablecoin distribution through a partnership with Samsung that will bring USD Coin to Samsung Wallet users in the United States, with the service expected to launch in the last week of October 2026 and USDC as the default dollar stablecoin. Coinbase will provide subcustody through Coinbase Prime, alongside licensed infrastructure partner Bastion. The company said average USDC balances held in Coinbase products reached a record $20 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 44% year over year, with more than 30% of circulating USDC held in Coinbase products at quarter-end. Coinbase cautioned that greater adoption will not automatically translate into higher earnings, since the financial impact will depend on customer activity, transaction volumes, operating costs and revenue-sharing arrangements. Among competitors, PayPal Holdings is broadening the reach of its PYUSD stablecoin through its consumer and merchant network, while Circle Internet Group announced a partnership with Tereina on Oct. 7, 2026 to integrate USDC and EURC into enterprise workflows starting with the SAP ecosystem. Shares of Coinbase have lost 55.5% in the past year compared with the industry decline of 27.9%, and the stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 74.44 against an industry average of 15.11.

JPMorgan Chase has launched JLTXX, a tokenized US money market fund on Ethereum aimed at institutional clients, as the bank moves to build reserve infrastructure for future US stablecoin issuers. The bank is working alongside BlackRock to provide tokenized money market products that could support stablecoin reserves, with both groups building fund infrastructure aligned with new GENIUS Act rules that require regulated backing for US stablecoin issuers by 2027. JPMorgan, a US bank and financial holding company with a reported market value of about $876.1b, already runs a global payments, markets, and custody network that gives it a ready-made base to plug tokenized money market funds into real world transaction flows. The push adds to an already heavy technology and AI expense line, while players like Citigroup and Bank of America are also pursuing digital asset infrastructure.

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said the clearest use case for stablecoins today is in cross-border payments, telling Bloomberg TV that such transfers take days and carry unclear fees. "If you make a cross-border payment, it takes days; the fees are unclear. From a working capital perspective for a company, if you could move the money instantly, it would be so much better," Miebach reportedly said. Mastercard, alongside Visa, Stripe and other partners, launched the Open USD stablecoin on Solana last month. Miebach said the company was keen to create a stablecoin focused particularly on moving money rather than on investment purposes.