BlackRock, SBI Holdings and Startale Group have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore how tokenized money market funds could be connected with JPYSC, the yen stablecoin that SBI’s trust bank issues in Japan. The deal was announced on 27 October in Tokyo (26 October evening in the US). The joint release, published on Startale’s site, says the parties will explore and examine the idea. It names no fund, no blockchain, no launch date and no amount of money.
Four entities signed, the release says: SBI Holdings, Inc., Startale Group Pte. Ltd., BlackRock Financial Management, Inc. and BlackRock Japan Co., Ltd. For BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, the memorandum ties its name to a yen stablecoin issued by a Japanese trust bank. Nothing has been built yet.
Three workstreams, no product: what the BlackRock yen stablecoin MoU says
The joint release lists three areas of work. The first is technology and infrastructure, including the technical requirements for connecting tokenized funds with the stablecoin. The second covers business models and distribution opportunities. The third is regulation and market development.
The release says the effort is meant to be open to other market participants, including financial institutions and businesses in Japan and abroad. Coingape writes that the companies will look for further partners. Nothing in the text says how the work will be organised, who leads each strand or when the parties will report back.
Yoshitaka Kitao, chairman and president of SBI Holdings, is quoted in the release saying that “the shift to onchain finance is becoming an unavoidable global trend.” Sota Watanabe, chief executive of Startale, goes further: “This transformation is irreversible, and Japan must accelerate its efforts to remain at the forefront of this shift.”
BlackRock’s two signatories are more measured. Yukiko Hashimoto, president of BlackRock Japan, is quoted saying that advances in digital assets, “including tokenization, are opening up new possibilities for financial markets.” Jonathan Steel, a managing director at BlackRock Financial Management, speaks of a shared commitment to disciplined innovation and of linking traditional finance with digital-asset networks. Neither mentions a product.
No fund, no chain, no date: what the release leaves out
The joint release does not name a BlackRock fund. It names no blockchain. There is no timeline, no pilot, no client, no amount and no split of revenue. It does not say whether the memorandum binds anyone; it is described only as exploratory.
It also does not say that BlackRock will hold, issue or accept JPYSC, nor that a money fund would become part of the stablecoin’s reserves. Crypto Briefing was blunt: “No integration with JPYSC has been confirmed.” The same outlet notes that the release does not say which BlackRock tokenized money fund products would be involved.
Readers who know BlackRock’s tokenized fund BUIDL will look for it here. It is not in the release. Startale co-builds the Soneium network with Sony, and that chain is not mentioned either. No regulator is named as a party or as having been consulted.
JPYSC, the trust-bank yen stablecoin behind the deal
JPYSC went live on 24 June 2026. SBI Shinsei Trust Bank issues it, SBI VC Trade, a licensed exchange, distributes it, and Startale leads the technical work, according to Bitcoin.com, The Block and Crypto Briefing. In the joint release, Kitao calls it Japan’s first trust-type yen stablecoin.
Bitcoin.com reported at launch that JPYSC is pegged one to one to the yen, that reserves sit in segregated trust accounts and that holders have trust beneficiary rights. It said reserves may include bank deposits and up to 50% Japanese government bonds. Crypto Briefing says the reserves now include short-term government bonds.
How big is it? According to Crypto Briefing, about 20.7 billion JPYSC tokens were in circulation as of 26 October, worth roughly $131.5 million. We found no second source for that figure.
SBI and Startale ran proofs of concept in July on an Ethereum test network, Crypto Briefing reports, testing near-instant settlement and automated on-chain dividends for a tokenized equity fund of about $1.3 billion. On 6 October Startale Japan announced a pilot corporate bond, the Startale Bond, whose interest and principal are to be paid in JPYSC. It gave no amount and no chain, and the bond is open only to individuals and companies in Japan.
The closest earlier tie to BlackRock came on 16 October. SBI and Startale said that day that they had joined Open Standard, the alliance behind the dollar stablecoin Open USD (OUSD), whose members include BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Coinbase. They plan to explore a pilot linking OUSD and JPYSC, which, Startale wrote, “does not represent the launch of a new commercial service.”
How Japan regulates a yen stablecoin
Japan has had a stablecoin law for more than three years. Amendments to the Payment Services Act passed in 2022 and took effect a year later, in June 2023, The Block reports. Under that regime, stablecoins backed by fiat money are treated as electronic payment instruments, and only licensed banks, trust companies and registered money-transfer services may issue them.
JPYSC belongs to the trust-type category, classed as a Type III electronic payment instrument, according to Crypto Briefing. That is a different route from JPYC, which launched exactly one year ago, on 27 October 2025, as the first yen stablecoin recognised under the law, The Block reported at the time. JPYC’s issuer is registered as a funds transfer service provider. Bitcoin.com says JPYSC carries no transaction cap.
Japan’s banks are moving too. Coindaro reported that MUFG, SMBC and Mizuho finished a yen stablecoin trial with Mitsubishi and aim for real payments by March 2027. That token is a deposit-backed instrument for vetted corporate clients, not a coin sold on an exchange. For a plain explanation of how these tokens hold their peg, see our beginner’s guide to stablecoins.
BlackRock’s tokenized funds and a busy week for money funds on-chain
BlackRock’s best-known tokenized product is BUIDL, launched in 2024. The Block puts it at about $2.17 billion, held in US Treasurys, overnight repurchase agreements and cash. Crypto Briefing counts about $2 billion across BlackRock’s tokenized offerings on several chains. In August, Cointelegraph reported two newer BlackRock products, BSTBL and BRSRV, designed as reserve assets for US stablecoin issuers under the GENIUS Act. All of them invest in short-term US government debt, repos and cash, and no source links any of them to this memorandum.
The Tokyo announcement follows a run of money-fund news on public blockchains in the past few days. Coindaro covered each one:
| Date (2026) | Manager | What happened | Limit we reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Oct | J.P. Morgan Asset Management | Its two tokenized money funds, MONY and JLTXX, go to Solana | Qualified US investors, $1 million minimum |
| 22 Oct | Franklin Templeton | Its Singapore tokenized money fund quadruples on the XRP Ledger to about $200 million | One wallet holds every share |
| 26 Oct | Aviva Investors | A share class of its £22 billion sterling fund goes on the XRP Ledger | The first £50 million is Aviva’s own |
| 27 Oct | BlackRock, SBI, Startale | MoU to explore links with the yen stablecoin JPYSC | No fund, chain, date or amount named |
Each of the other three involved a named fund on a named chain. The Tokyo memorandum has neither.
SBI’s other stablecoin ties, and what to watch next
SBI Holdings is a long-standing Ripple partner, and Ripple chose SBI Group to bring its dollar stablecoin RLUSD to Japan through SBI VC Trade, Coingape notes. Startale, for its part, closed a $63 million Series A in March, $50 million of it from SBI and $13 million from Sony, according to Bitcoin.com. The memorandum adds BlackRock to a network SBI was already building around JPYSC.
For readers in Europe, nothing changes directly. Euro stablecoins fall under MiCA, supervised by the AMF in France and by Consob and the Banca d’Italia in Italy, and the deal has no euro element. The signals to watch are concrete ones: a named BlackRock fund, a named chain, a pilot date, or a regulator’s approval in Japan. None of the four is public as of 27 October.