Japan Accelerates Stablecoin Adoption with Lawson Pilot and Netstars Merchant Launch

Japanese convenience-store operator Lawson is set to trial yen-denominated stablecoin payments at a Tokyo store in August, testing the feasibility of integrating digital assets into standard retail checkout processes. On Monday, blockchain firm HashPort announced a partnership with Lawson and telecom group KDDI to conduct the pilot at the Lawson Takanawa Gateway City location.

During the trial, customers will use HashPort’s non-custodial wallet to make payments, while the store will process transactions through its existing point-of-sale system—eliminating the need for merchants to manage crypto wallets or handle blockchain complexities. The initiative aims to evaluate integration requirements, payment speed, checkout usability, and overall operational viability before considering wider deployment.

In a parallel development, Japanese payments company Netstars officially launched its Stablecoin Pay service on Monday, inviting merchants to accept multiple stablecoins including USDC, USDT, and the yen-pegged JPYC. The service operates on the Solana and Polygon blockchains and currently supports MetaMask as the user wallet.

Netstars has set a merchant fee of 0.98% and emphasized that businesses can continue using their existing payment terminals. Crucially, merchants receive settlements in Japanese yen regardless of the stablecoin used by the customer—removing exposure to crypto volatility and eliminating the need to hold digital assets or manage foreign exchange rates.

This commercial rollout follows earlier Netstars trials: USDC payments were tested at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport from January to February 2025 and at a trading-card store in Himeji in April. The shift from limited pilots to a full merchant-facing platform reflects growing momentum in Japan’s regulated stablecoin ecosystem.

Japan’s dedicated stablecoin regulatory framework took effect on June 1, 2023, through amendments to the Payment Services Act. The law established clear categories for fiat-linked stablecoins and mandated registration with the Financial Services Agency (FSA) for intermediaries. This paved the way for Circle’s USDC to gain regulatory approval for distribution in March 2025, followed by JPYC’s registration as a fund transfer service provider in August 2025 ahead of its public launch in October.