SBI plans Japan-Korea stablecoin network on Canton

SBI Digital Practice and South Korea’s Nodeinfra agreed to jointly develop a cross-border payment and settlement network between Japan and South Korea using Canton Network infrastructure. Summary SBI and Nodeinfra will test yen and won payment tokens before introducing regulated stablecoins commercially. Project Musubi will use Canton Network for atomic payment-versus-payment settlement and distributed peer netting initially. SBI Digital Practice will connect Japanese financial institutions while Nodeinfra builds settlement protocols and tooling. Japan already has SBI’s JPYSC, while South Korea is still developing won stablecoin legislation domestically. The partners plan eventual expansion beyond Japan and South Korea into additional currencies and jurisdictions. The companies announced the memorandum of understanding on Aug. 7, calling the initiative Project Musubi. The first phase will use yen-denominated and won-denominated test tokens rather than live commercial stablecoins, according to SBI’s release. The project is designed to address the current use of the U.S. dollar as an intermediary in some Japan-Korea settlements. SBI said sequential settlement through a dollar vehicle...