Intertangible was invited to join panel on the future of stablecoins in Japan and Asia
We were invited to bring our perspective on regulatory navigation and emerging technology to a panel on one of the fastest-moving stories in finance right now. Our Managing Director, Una Softic, moderated the conversation, bringing together three people actively building the infrastructure and regulatory rails for stablecoins in Japan: Takeshi Chino (GM, Binance Japan), Sandeep Casi (Partner, Antler Japan), and Yusuke Takezawa (CSO, Progmat).
Setting the stage
Una opened the session by grounding the room in what a stablecoin actually is; a token designed to hold a stable value, typically pegged to a reliable asset like the US dollar. Then she made the case for why the topic deserved the room’s full attention. Her framing was direct: this isn’t a niche crypto conversation, as stablecoin trading volume overtaking Visa’s in 2024 is a signal that traditional finance and companies well outside the crypto world are now taking the asset class seriously, and the panelists on stage were people actively shaping that shift rather than commentating on it from the sidelines.
That framing set up the throughline for the rest of the discussion, and it’s also the lens we bring to our own work at Intertangible: understand the mechanics well enough to explain them plainly, then use that clarity to help institutions and regulators engage with the technology on its actual merits rather than its hype cycle. It’s the same approach we apply across our AI governance translation and cross-jurisdictional advisory work: Technical fluency paired with the ability to make it legible to the people who need to make decisions on it.
The panel’s premise was straightforward: stablecoins are the most practical bridge between traditional finance and Web3, and Japan is now positioned to be a serious player in that bridge, but only if regulation, interoperability, and industry collaboration move together. It’s exactly the kind of cross-jurisdictional, multi-stakeholder conversation Intertangible is built to help facilitate.
Is regulation enabler, obstacle, or both?
For years, Japan had no clear framework for stablecoins, which meant they couldn’t even be used to buy cryptocurrency domestically. Financial Services Agency’s recent moves changed that not by loosening rules, but by making the “dos and don’ts” explicit. Takezawa made the point from the issuer’s side: Progmat’s stablecoin infrastructure relies on a trust-bank scheme mandated by Japanese law, and that structure is precisely what gives institutional players the confidence to participate.
The broader argument: predictable regulation lowers the risk of sudden shocks, and that predictability is what unlocks institutional and retail participation. Japan’s clarity now puts it ahead of jurisdictions like the EU, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, which are still catching up.
This is consistent with what we see across our advisory work:The jurisdictions that move fastest on emerging technology adoption are rarely the least regulated. They’re the ones where regulators and industry are in continuous, structured dialogue.
Interoperability determines whether stablecoins go mainstream
A stablecoin confined to one country’s payment rails doesn’t solve the problem it’s meant to solve. Takezawa’s team at Progmat is leading Project Pax with SWIFT, building a cross-border settlement platform designed to plug stablecoins into the correspondent banking system rather than compete with it. The goal is to cut the cost and friction of cross-border remittance, an area where Japanese trading companies, with heavy cross-border exposure, are already showing demand.
Binance’s approach is complementary: working with Progmat to issue JPY and non-JPY stablecoins so that trading activity (where stablecoin pairs already dominate liquidity outside Japan) has a compliant, efficient home domestically.
Adoption is a trust problem before it’s a technology problem
Casi framed that adoption doesn’t happen at the institutional layer, it happens when a vegetable vendor accepts stablecoin payment without thinking twice. Getting there requires two things the panel returned to repeatedly through education and anchor partnerships.
On education, Una asked Chino whether Binance Academy is aimed to serve as an example of the baseline literacy work exchanges need to do so users understand custody, risk, and basic safety. On partnerships, Chino was direct: adoption accelerates when household names like Toyota or JR start accepting the technology, not when it stays confined to crypto-native platforms.
Casi also brought a venture lens: Antler evaluates roughly 400 companies a year across 12,000 entrepreneurs, and stablecoins are lowering the barrier for Web3 startups to launch credibly, because investors now have a stable settlement layer to underwrite. He raised gaming and IP-driven micropayments (including Japan’s manga IP) as an underexplored opportunity for founders building in this space.
AI’s emerging role
The panel touched briefly on where AI fits: Models can be trained to detect scam patterns and protect peer-to-peer transfers, and that LLMs are increasingly useful for parsing the kind of cross-border, cross-regulatory complexity this space involves. It’s a small thread in the conversation, but one we expect to grow as fraud detection and compliance automation are natural early use cases as stablecoin volume scales.
Intertangible’s role in this
We were especially honored to receive a personal thank-you note from Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike following the session, which a meaningful acknowledgment of the value this kind of dialogue brings to Tokyo’s ambitions as a global fintech hub.
Watch the full session: youtube.com/watch?v=Tqkhe9tP_TE