According to a recent report from Japanese business source Nikkei, Sony is preparing to launch its own US dollar-based stablecoin for use in various platforms, potentially including gaming (PlayStation), music (Sony Music) and anime (Crunchyroll).
The business will be run by Sony Bank, which has applied for a US stablecoin license through its fully-owned US subsidiary Connectia Trust, which ensures its stablecoin will be fully regulated and backed with US dollar reserves such as cash and treasury bonds.
The stablecoin will run on Sony’s Ethereum L2 Soneium blockchain, providing very fast and very cheap transactions.
Sony is also working with stablecoin issuing company Bastion to handle liquidity management, minting and burning, and compliance issues such as anti-money laundering. The Sony Innovation Fund invested in Bastion’s recent $15 million funding round, alongside Coinbase Ventures, a16z crypto, Samsung Next and Hashed.
Bastion currently handles $410 million in monthly transaction volume across Ethereum, Base and Solana.
Users will likely have to be KYC’ed to create a wallet, and then would be able to buy Sony’s stablecoin via their debit or credit card and use it across all supported services.
There would also be the potential to use these stablecoins in DeFi apps to earn yield, although under the US Genius act, stablecoins can earn interest natively.
A key advantage for Sony in terms of having its own stablecoin would be the option to save the 1.5-2% of transaction fees that it currently pays to the likes of Visa and Mastercard.
It’s estimated that US gamers spend over $15 billion annually through PlayStation Network, suggesting Sony could save as much as $200 million in transaction fees, or $15 million for each $1 billion of payments it converts to stablecoins.
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