Tokyo — Japan’s Fisco Ltd. is experimenting with selling bonds denominated in bitcoins, figuring that the digital currency will eventually become a legally recognised financial asset in Japan and help boost its business.
A unit of the Tokyo-based financial information provider issued three-year debt worth 200 bitcoins to another firm in the Fisco group on Aug. 10, in what likely is the first such deal in Japan, according to Masayuki Tashiro, the company’s chief product officer. One goal of the sale was to test the bonds’ potential to become a useful fund-raising tool, he said. The notes issued were worth about $813,000 (Dh2.98 million) as of Wednesday.
The experiment is another example of how companies and investors worldwide are looking for ways to make money out of bitcoin. Some investors have turned to digital currencies as a haven asset as tensions between the US and North Korea escalate. Japan, where regulators have made more progress than other nations in crafting cryptocurrency laws, is becoming a hub for blockchain experimentation.
“We expect that bitcoin will eventually be recognised as a financial product” under local law governing financial instruments, Tashiro said. If that happens and issuance of cryptocurrency debt takes off, “if we play a role of arranger, we could earn fees,” he said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government on April 1 legalised cryptocurrencies as a form of payment and placed rules around audits and security. In July, regulators began allowing bitcoin purchases to be exempt from the nation’s 8 per cent sales tax, putting them on similar footing with financial products like stocks and bonds.
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The legal clarity has given Japanese companies a green light to experiment with blockchain products. Electronics retailer Bic Camera Inc. now accepts bitcoin as payment at certain stores, while Peach Aviation Ltd. plans to begin accepting it to book flights later this year. In finance, SBI Holdings Inc. last month began using a blockchain for currency remittance, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. joined a consortium of companies that plan to use the technology for settlements.
Bitcoin surged past $4,000 this week on increasing optimism that faster transaction times will hasten the spread of the digital currency. The currency was at $4,362 on Thursday in Asia, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.
Fisco designed the bond like a regular corporate note so it could satisfy regulatory requirements, he said. The debt pays a 3 per cent coupon and gives the holder 200 bitcoins back when it matures, according to a press release. Fisco may experiment further with such debt, Tashiro said.
