GUGroup, the promoter of Japan Open Chain, has raised a 420 million yen ($2.9m) funding. Japan Open Chain is an Ethereum compatible public blockchain with enterprises running the validator nodes. They include Sony subsidiary Corgear, NTT Docomo, Dentsu and Fukuoka Financial’s digital bank, Minna no Ginko.
The main backer announced today is Japan’s B Dash Ventures and the company also sold tokens to overseas investors.
One of GuGroup’s subsidiaries is GUCoin Studio, a stablecoin issuance solution. In March, the company announced three smaller banks were involved in experiments. The largest of the group is the Fukuoka subsidiary Minna no Bank, which is now a validator. Tokyo Kiraboshi Financial Group and Shikoku Bank were the two others.
In September GU announced another demonstration with Orix Corp, the financial conglomerate with a market capitalization of $21 billion. In the United States, Orix is known as an alternative asset manager, but it also has interests in insurance and banking.
NTT Docomo’s involvement in Japan Open Chain could prove important as it recently acquired a 49% interest in Monex Securities, the owner of Japan’s largest crypto exchange Coincheck. Elsewhere, major cryptocurrency exchanges are associated with particular stablecoins. For example, Binance had Binance USD, Coinbase is associated with USDC and Bitfinex with Tether.
Earlier this month, GU announced it would be part of the Fujitsu web3 accelerator program. It will focus on cross chain transfers using Fujitsu technologies. Accenture and Fujitsu co-founded Hyperledger Cacti, one of the open source blockchain interoperability initiatives.
Meanwhile, supportive stablecoin legislation came into force Japan in the middle of this year. Progmat Coin is another stablecoin platform backed by several banks, including Japan’s big three MUFG, SMBC and Mizuho.
