Episode Details

This story was originally published on HackerNoon at: https://hackernoon.com/sony-sbi-and-a-yen-stablecoin-how-startale-embedded-itself-inside-corporate-japan.
Sota Watanabe on building Startale with Sony and SBI, launching the JPYSC yen stablecoin, and why he left Astar to own the full onchain stack.
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Q: Who is Sota Watanabe? Sota Watanabe is the founder of Startale Group and previously the founder of Astar Network, Japan's largest public blockchain, launched in 2019. He co-develops the Soneium L2 with Sony Block Solutions Labs, leads Startale's partnership with SBI Holdings on tokenised securities, and oversees the issuance of JPYSC, Japan's first yen stablecoin under a regulated trust banking framework. He recently relocated to the United States to lead Startale's global expansion while retaining Tokyo as the company's regulated-infrastructure base. Q: What is Startale Group? Startale Group is a vertically integrated onchain finance company headquartered in Japan. It co-develops Soneium with Sony, builds tokenised securities infrastructure with SBI Holdings through Strium, issues both yen (JPYSC) and dollar stablecoins, and operates consumer-facing applications. The company has raised $63 million in Series A funding with participation from Sony Innovation Fund and SBI. Q: What is Soneium? Soneium is an Ethereum Layer-2 network co-developed by Startale Group and Sony Block Solutions Labs. It is designed to make blockchain invisible to mainstream users by removing gas fees, seed phrases, and the typical onboarding friction associated with crypto-native applications, while inheriting the reliability standards Sony applies across its global consumer businesses. Q: What is JPYSC? JPYSC is Japan's first yen-denominated stablecoin issued by a regulated financial institution under Japan's trust banking framework. Unlike USD-denominated stablecoins from Circle or Tether, JPYSC originates from inside a fully regulated traditional finance entity and is built for 24/7 onchain settlement of one of the world's most heavily traded currency pairs. Use cases include FX optimization, yen liquidity management, carry strategies, and time-zone-based currency efficiency. Q: How is JPYSC different from Tether and USDC? JPYSC differs from Tether and Circle on two structural dimensions. First, the issuer is a fully regulated traditional financial institution, meaning institutional trust precedes onchain adoption rather than being built outward from a crypto-native base. Second, JPYSC is yen-denominated rather than USD-denominated, bringing one of the world's most liquid currencies onchain for 24/7 programmable settlement. Q: What is Strium? Strium is a tokenised securities platform b