Lawson will pilot JPYC stablecoin payments at a Tokyo convenience store in August, in what the retailer calls Japan’s first test linking a stablecoin directly to a point-of-sale system. Wallet provider Hashport powers the experiment, which could move yen stablecoins from financial pilots into everyday retail.
Japanese convenience store operator Lawson is preparing to test payments using JPYC, a yen-pegged stablecoin, in a move that could push Japan’s digital currency market closer to mainstream retail adoption. The pilot is expected to begin in early August at Lawson’s Takanawa Gateway City store in Tokyo’s Minato Ward, according to the Nikkei.
How the POS test works
The company will work with digital asset wallet provider Hashport to let shoppers pay for goods through smartphone electronic wallets. The flow resembles existing mobile payments: a customer displays a wallet barcode on a phone, a store employee scans it through the point-of-sale terminal, and Hashport then updates the user’s stablecoin balance from the payment data.
Lawson said it is the first experiment in Japan to link stablecoin payments directly with a POS system. The company describes that connection as the key feature of the pilot, because it ties JPYC into Lawson’s existing store management infrastructure rather than running a simple wallet-to-wallet transfer.
Why the integration matters
By linking payments to the POS system, Lawson can manage purchase data such as product quantity, payment timing, and transaction details inside its current operations. The company plans to evaluate the stability of that integration and the time each payment takes before deciding whether to expand the service more broadly.
The step fits a wider push in Japan. Chibo, an okonomiyaki restaurant operator, started accepting JPYC at some stores in April, and dental clinics in Tokyo plan to introduce JPYC payments with Hashport. Meanwhile the country’s three largest banks — Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Mizuho Bank — are running stablecoin pilots with the Financial Services Agency.
A large market at stake
The broader opportunity is sizeable. Citigroup has projected that the global stablecoin market could grow from $282 billion last year to between $1.9 trillion and $4 trillion by 2030. If Lawson moves from pilot to full rollout, it would show that yen stablecoins can operate inside ordinary store payment systems, not only in remittance, trading, or banking pilots.
Source: Bitcoin News
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