On Tuesday (9 October 2018), Japan’s GMO Internet Group announced via a press release that it is planning to plan to start issuing a yen-backed stablecoin (“GJY”) for the Asian region in the fiscal year 2019, and make it available via Z.com.
Tokyo-headquarted GMO Internet Group consists of 111 companies worldwide. It serves 10.5 million customers across four business segments: “Internet Finance”, “Cryptocurrency” (Mining, Crypto Exchange, and Settlement), “Online Advertising & Media”, and “Internet Infrastructure”. The biggest part of the business is Internet Infrastructure (51.5% of the business; 9.27 million customers) is made up of “Domain Registry”, “Domain Registrar”, “Hosting & Cloud”, “Security”, “Payment”, “Ecommerce Solutions”, and “Internet Service Provider”.
With regard to its crypto mining business, which started in December 2017, its mining operations are based in two countries in Northern Europe. Also, it sells mining hardware: its new “GMO Miner B3” which has a hashing power of 24-33 TH/s and costs $1,999 is supposed to come out later this month.
Also worth mentioning is that GMO Internet owns “Z.com”, which is one of only three single-character domain names available in the .com namespace. This is GMO Internet Group’s global brand.
GMO Internet is not the only company planning to launch a yen-collateralized stablecoin. Tether, which already supports the dollar and the euro, says in the FAQ section of its website that “soon” it plans to also offer a yen-backed Tether (“JPYT”).
Also, on 18 September 2018, South China Morning Post reported that “Grandshores Technology Group, a Hong Kong-listed contractor-turned-blockchain investor, plans to raise HK$100 million (US$12.7 million) via a digital token fund to finance a yen-backed cryptocurrency project.” The new stablecoin’s launch is expected to take place by the end of 2018 or early 2019.
Featured Image Courtesy of GMO Internet Group
