TL;DR
- Japan’s FSA, Ministry of Finance and BOJ are preparing a 2027 plan for blockchain-based stock and government bond settlement, targeting real-time processing instead of two days.
- The proposal would tokenize part of banks’ BOJ current accounts, while dozens of banks separately test tokenized deposits, stablecoins and blockchain collateral.
- Japan is advancing regulation alongside infrastructure, including crypto reclassification, a separate tax framework and a new dedicated FSA crypto and stablecoin division.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency, Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan are preparing a development plan for blockchain-based settlement of stocks and Japanese government bonds, with local institutions joining the work from this summer. The blueprint could arrive as early as the beginning of 2027, detailing network design, responsibilities and a roadmap toward implementation. The striking ambition is to compress settlement from two days to real time. A portion of bank current accounts held at the BOJ would be tokenized on blockchain, turning central-bank money into part of the proposed infrastructure across Japan’s capital markets.
Japan’s blockchain push reaches core securities infrastructure
Japan’s plan is not simply another tokenization experiment. If approved, authorities could launch the system within several years and aim for full operation in the early 2030s. The project may also sit inside a multi-year strategic investment framework the government is planning from fiscal 2027. The unusual part is the scale of the coordination: monetary authorities, financial regulators and market institutions would share responsibility for rebuilding settlement infrastructure. That makes blockchain less a peripheral digital-asset tool and more a candidate rail for core securities-market plumbing. The proposal therefore reaches directly into existing financial market operations.
The timing also reflects broader domestic momentum. Roughly 40 regional and online banks announced a proof-of-concept for interbank transfers using tokenized deposits, with testing potentially beginning this month. In April, Japan Securities Clearing Corporation partnered with Mizuho, Nomura and Digital Asset on a trial exploring Japanese government bonds as blockchain collateral. Meanwhile, Mizuho Bank, MUFG and SMBC are working on an FSA-backed stablecoin pilot. Together, these projects suggest Japan is testing several forms of tokenized money and securities infrastructure in parallel rather than betting on a single implementation path across multiple layers of the system.
Regulation is moving alongside infrastructure. In July, Japan passed amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act that will reclassify roughly 105 cryptocurrencies as financial instruments from fiscal 2027 and establish the basis for separate crypto taxation at an effective rate of around 20%, compared with current rates reaching 55%. The FSA also created a dedicated cryptocurrency and stablecoin division earlier this month. The broader signal is difficult to miss: Japan is aligning settlement modernization, bank experimentation and crypto regulation as parts of one wider financial digitization strategy, rather than treating each initiative in isolation.
