Lawson Tests Stablecoin Payments in Tokyo Store

The JPYC trial at a Lawson store is testing whether yen stablecoins can also work smoothly at the checkout. Japan keeps stablecoins tightly regulated under the Payment Services Act.

Key Takeaways

• Lawson will launch a stablecoin payment trial with JPYC at a Tokyo store in early August.
• Shoppers will pay by having a barcode from their crypto wallet scanned at checkout through the POS system.
• Lawson says this is Japan's first stablecoin payment test directly connected to a POS system.

Japanese supermarket chain Lawson is set to test stablecoin payments at one of its Tokyo stores in August. The pilot will use JPYC, a yen-pegged stablecoin, and is designed to see whether digital payments can fit cleanly into everyday retail checkout flows.

Trial in Tokyo

According to Nikkei, Lawson will start the proof of concept in early August at its Takanawa Gateway City store in Minato Ward. The company is using JPYC, the fully regulated yen stablecoin issued by Tokyo fintech JPYC Inc. That moves Lawson beyond the more common stablecoin use cases of commerce and remittances and into direct consumer payments in physical stores.

For the pilot, Lawson is partnering with wallet provider HashPort. Customers will display a barcode from their crypto wallet on their smartphone, and store staff will scan it through the point-of-sale system. HashPort will then handle the stablecoin balance using the payment data.

Why This Matters

Lawson says this is Japan's first stablecoin payment test that connects directly to a POS system. That setup allows store software to capture purchase details such as item counts and payment timing. For European crypto readers, the bigger takeaway is that Japan has long kept stablecoins tightly regulated: under the revised Payment Services Act, they are treated as electronic payment instruments and must meet licensing, full-reserve, and par redemption requirements. In Japan, Circle and Nomura are also launching a digital currency service for Japan's forex market, although that effort is focused on business payments and FX settlement.

JPYC Keeps Growing

JPYC launched last year and has continued to gain traction since then. According to Token Terminal, the token now has a market value of about $27 million (€23.6 million) and roughly 64,400 holders. For Lawson, the trial is mainly about two practical questions: whether the integration holds up in a live store environment and how quickly transactions clear before the company considers a wider rollout.