Trading House Mitsui to Launch New Gold-Pegged Crypto
- One ZPG token will have the same price as one gram of gold, which will be guaranteed by the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
- The token will be released as early as this month, and will first be available on Mitsui’s proprietary cryptocurrency exchange, which is registered with Japan’s Financial Services Agency.
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Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. is planning to launch a digital currency, called ZipangCoin (ZPG), that will be linked to the price of gold, Nikkei Asia reported on 4 February.
According to the publication, Mitsui plans to make the new cryptocurrency available to retail investors as early as this month through its own crypto exchange, which is licensed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA). The platform was launched in cooperation with Seven Bank and is registered with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau, which covers the Greater Tokyo Area.
Nikkei Asia also noted that the currency will also be made available on other FSA-registered crypto exchanges, though they will first need to undergo user identity verification. The new digital currency will be linked to the price of gold in Japanese yen, which will be procured by Mitsui from the London Metal Exchange. The price of one ZPG will be equal to the value of one gram of gold, and will be guaranteed by the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.
While the main goal of Mitsui is to create a new option to mitigate financial risks and hedge against inflation, it also plans to use ZPG as a payment tool for its affiliated retailers through a smartphone application and other digital payment systems. The token will run on a permissioned blockchain — enabling Mitsui to control who participates in the network — which will separate ZPG from other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Although Mitsui is set to release Japan’s first gold-pegged token, it is not the first company to have focused its efforts on developing a stablecoin. Back in November, a consortium of 70 Japanese firms — including Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Financial, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial — announced the start of a trial for a stablecoin backed by bank deposits called DCJPY.
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