GMO Internet, Inc., a company playing a major role in the rental server business in Japan, announced on October 10 that it will issue a Japanese yen-linked stablecoin called “GMO Japanese YEN (GJY)” in Asia in fiscal 2019. The currency is expected to be issued through Z.com, a global brand from GMO Internet Group.

GMO Internet is becoming increasingly committed to its cryptocurrency operations; the company entered into the cryptocurrency exchange business in May 2017 and launched a cryptocurrency mining business later in December of that year. Having already entered two of the three business fields related to cryptocurrency—“exchange” and “mining”—GMO Internet had been taking steps to survey and research the possibility of cryptocurrency becoming a currency of settlement in the remaining business field of “payment,” from the perspective of volatility.

GMO Internet has recognized stablecoin’s potential in achieving price stability, leading the company to start full-scale preparations for issuing stablecoins to support borderless transactions that use cryptocurrency.

Another notable Japanese stablecoin that is pegged to Japanese yen to ensure price stability is ZEN (JPYZ), issued as part of a project by the Blockchain Collaborative Consortium (BCCC). ZEN entered the market through the Zaif cryptocurrency exchange last year, and BCCC guarantees the exchange of \1 JPY for 1 ZEN, adopting Ethereum as its blockchain base. In addition to Ethereum, ZEN is also being implemented and managed on mijin, a private blockchain in Japan, and the cryptocurrency is expected to be mutually managed and confirmed on other blockchains such as Hyperledger Fabric in the future.

The advantages of stablecoin are likely to gather attention in the future as a user-friendly payment method that overcomes the disadvantage of price instability in cryptocurrency.

*This article was written by Fisco