An inflation hedge in deflation-prone Japan? At least that’s what Mitsui & Co. is preparing to offer via a coin that may be available as early as this month. According to Nikkei, the trading house is planning a cryptocurrency linked to the yen-denominated price of one gram of gold.
Gold is a sideshow in the blockchain world. When it comes to backing a token with a fiat currency or another asset to stabilize its price, the dollar is by far the more popular choice. Tether, which promises 1:1 conversion into the U.S. currency, has a market capitalization of nearly $80 billion, according to CoinGecko, compared with under $500 million for Tether Gold and a little less than $400 million for Pax Gold.
But then, the main use of stablecoins so far has been as a store of value — for traders to buy and sell wildly fluctuating tokens like Bitcoin, Ether and Shiba Inu without needing to convert funds into fiat money and vice versa. Mitsui, on the other hand, appears to be aiming for broader adoption of its so-called ZipangCoin, as both means of payment at convenience stores and supermarkets and as protection against inflation.