Prime Minister's Endorsement, SBI's Buying Spree, and Lawson's Pilot: Japan is Seizing the Compliance Dividend in Crypto

On July 13, the WebX 2026 conference opened in Tokyo, attracting around 15,000 attendees. The current Prime Minister personally delivered a speech, reiterating the need to expand funding support for the "Startup Comprehensive Support Package." Prior to this, former Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba had also spoken at the last two WebX events—Kishida emphasized tax and regulatory reforms to pave the way for Web3 startups in 2024, while Ishiba further positioned Web3 as the core of a "once-in-a-century" industrial revolution in 2025.

The change of Prime Ministers has not altered the commitment to this cause. Japan's bet on Web3 is not merely a personal choice of a political figure, but has been integrated into the long-term agenda of the system.

On the same day, July 13, Japan's financial group SBI made a significant announcement: in collaboration with the Solana Foundation, they reached a strategic partnership to jointly build Japan's on-chain financial market. SBI R3 Japan will work alongside the Solana Foundation and existing shareholders SBI and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, with plans to rename the company to "SBI Solana Global."

Looking back, SBI Holdings has recorded some notable figures: a $125 million exclusive investment in Gauntlet, a $76 million investment in EDX Markets, and an acquisition of Bitbank for approximately $289 million. In total, SBI has invested nearly $500 million in the crypto sector within a short period.

A more grounded scene unfolded at the Takamatsu Lawson convenience store: in early August, Lawson plans to pilot JPYC stablecoin POS payments at this location. Purchasing a bottle of water or a rice ball using stablecoins for payment marks Japan's first attempt to integrate stablecoin payments into real retail scenarios.

On the surface, these events may seem unrelated, but together they signal a clear message: Japan is using national will to pave a compliant highway for the crypto industry.

First Layer: Comprehensive Bets on Licenses, Capital, and Scenarios

First, let's examine the actions regarding licenses. SBI's recent investments are not scattershot; each one is strategically placed at critical infrastructure nodes.

Gauntlet is a core player in DeFi risk management and on-chain market making, investing in it equates to acquiring the "risk control brain" authority; EDX Markets is backed by Wall Street giants like Citadel and Fidelity, serving as a clearing channel for institutional-level crypto trading; Bitbank is one of Japan's largest crypto exchanges, directly securing a traffic entry point.

The establishment of SBI Solana Global fills in the most crucial piece of the puzzle: the underlying public chain. According to the cooperation agreement, this new company will advance five major businesses around the Solana network—issuance and circulation of the yen stablecoin JPYSC, composition and circulation of corporate bonds and tokenized RWA, cross-border payment infrastructure, on-chain financial services for institutional investors, and next-generation payment infrastructure for the AI Agent era.

Risk control, clearing, entry, and public chain—these four aspects are comprehensively addressed. This is not merely a financial investment; it is a strategic positioning within the industrial chain.

Next, consider SBI's own yen stablecoin JPYSC, paired with a 3% annualized lending service—this interest rate is particularly impactful in an environment of long-term zero or even negative interest rates for the yen. If even a portion of the cash held by Japanese savers is attracted by this rate, it represents a significant migration of funds.

Lawson's POS pilot transforms stablecoins from "a string of numbers in an exchange" into "money that can be used at a convenience store checkout." This step is more critical than all previous capital operations, as it touches on the entry rights of payment scenarios—whoever first integrates stablecoins into offline retail networks will capture the minds of ordinary people.

Finally, regarding the tax system. The Japanese parliament plans to reduce the capital gains tax on crypto from 55% to 20% by 2028. The significance of this figure is straightforward: with a 55% tax rate, both retail and institutional investors tend to keep their assets offshore or simply refrain from moving them; a reduction to 20% aligns it more closely with stocks and futures, meaning that Japanese domestic funds will finally have the motivation to "cash in" within the country.

Second Layer: Higher Barriers, Greater Rewards for Those Who Enter

On the surface, this appears to be the Japanese government supporting entrepreneurship, SBI making industrial investments, and Lawson keeping up with trends. However, the real question worth pondering is: when a country's regulatory barriers have never been lower, who will ultimately benefit?

The answer is clear: the one who successfully navigates the entire approval process first.

Japan's crypto regulation has always been known for its strictness, with high licensing thresholds and long approval cycles, leaving most small and medium-sized institutions unable to even prepare application materials. Ironically, this high barrier has kept most potential competitors at bay, leaving a near-empty battlefield for a few giants. SBI has spent years acquiring exchanges, clearing channels, and risk control systems all at once, and by capturing yen liquidity through stablecoin operations, when retail networks like Lawson expand payment scenarios, SBI can almost simultaneously gain both licensing advantages and traffic advantages, forming a compliant closed loop that others cannot easily catch up to in the short term.

A comparison makes this clearer: the U.S. stablecoin sector is a battleground between specialized issuers like Circle and traditional financial institutions; Japan, on the other hand, is taking the route of "financial groups led by zaibatsu personally engaging in the market." Established financial institutions like Mitsubishi UFJ and SBI are not merely investing in crypto companies; they are embedding crypto operations within their existing financial systems. This means that Japan's crypto infrastructure has been imbued with the lineage of traditional finance and regulatory endorsement from day one, making it significantly more challenging for small and medium-sized institutions to carve out a share compared to the U.S. or Singapore.

The tax rate reduction is similarly significant. On the surface, it appears to benefit ordinary investors, but the true leverage of the 20% tax rate is the massive savings accumulated within Japan—once a portion of this money flows into crypto assets, the first to enjoy the liquidity dividend will be those local players who have already secured their licenses and control the entry points. Regulatory relaxation is not about throwing money around; it is about allowing those already inside the door to catch the new funds pouring in from outside at the first opportunity.

Third Layer: A Replicable Model

Shifting the focus back to the industry itself, Japan's set of measures provides an observable institutional model: how a country can use "high-threshold licenses + zaibatsu-level capital + retail scenario pilots + tax incentives" to pull the crypto industry from the gray area into mainstream discourse within a few months.

This has direct reference value for other jurisdictions—over the past few years, the gray areas of stablecoins and crypto operations have largely been sustained by regulatory vacuums. Regions like Japan, Hong Kong, and the UAE are intensively supplementing licenses and tax systems, indicating that the arbitrage space of "wherever regulation is lax, there will be movement" is systematically narrowing, and the survival logic of the industry is shifting from "guerrilla warfare" to "securing licenses."

Japan's path is steady, albeit slow. SBI took years to build this complete licensing matrix, and Lawson's pilot is merely at "one store in Takamatsu." However, the direction is clear: when a conservative, established financial nation begins to personally pave the way, it indicates that this path is confirmed to lead to real money.

This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice. The market carries risks, and investments should be made cautiously.

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