Crypto World

Japan’s Big Banks Take Government Bonds On-Chain

Published

2 hours ago

21 April 2026

Japan’s Big Banks Take Government Bonds On-Chain

Four of Japan’s largest financial institutions have begun a major blockchain trial to digitally manage government bond collateral. The experiment aims to make trading Japanese government bonds possible around the clock, both at home and abroad.

The move could reshape how one of the world’s largest sovereign debt markets handles collateral across borders and time zones.

A Four-Way Partnership

Mizuho Financial Group, Nomura Holdings, Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, and Digital Asset announced the joint experiment on Monday. They will use the Canton Network, a blockchain platform built specifically for institutional finance and capital markets. The clearing house is a wholly-owned unit of Japan Exchange Group, the country’s main stock market operator.

The project will check whether blockchain can handle bond ownership transfers across multiple account managers. It will also test real-time collateral exchanges between clearing houses, institutional investors, and their clients. Japanese government bonds will keep their legal status as registered securities throughout the testing period.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency formally approved the trial under its Payment Innovation Project back in February. Regulators will also review whether Japanese laws need to be changed to allow full blockchain-based bond trading. The four partners plan to finish their work by the end of September, according to Nikkei.

The Canton Network already hosts similar projects from global financial giants like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. The US clearinghouse, DTCC, is also using the same network to tokenize American Treasury bonds. Japan’s move brings one of Asia’s most important safe-haven assets into the same global financial ecosystem.

Why It Matters

Collateral management usually requires complex coordination across institutions, different computing systems, and multiple legal jurisdictions worldwide. Moving the process on-chain could cut paperwork, reduce settlement delays, and free up capital for major banks. Japanese officials hope the experiment will strengthen Tokyo’s competitive position in the fast-growing global digital asset race.

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Coinbase’s x402 Launches Marketplace Platform for AI Agents

Published

5 minutes ago

21 April 2026

NewsAdmin

Coinbase’s x402 Launches Marketplace Platform for AI Agents

Coinbase-backed artificial intelligence payments standard x402 has launched a marketplace for apps and services to boost the usefulness of AI agents.

Coinbase product lead Nick Prince said in a video posted on X on Monday that the idea behind the platform, called Agentic.market, was to “give humans and their agents access to thousands of services, with zero API keys required.”

Prince, in a separate post, said the market was a “storefront for discovering, comparing, and using x402 services” and offers access to a wide variety of apps and websites that AI agents can use, such as CoinGecko, Google Flights and the social media site X.

He added that hundreds of thousands of AI agents have transacted hundreds of millions in volume, but AI agent users have “relied on fragmented sources and word-of-mouth” to find compatible services.

The x402 protocol, launched by Coinbase in May 2025, allows AI agents to make internet payments using stablecoins and has seen growing support as many companies believe AI technology will become more involved in commerce.

Introducing Agentic(dot)Market, the homepage of the agent economy.
– Monitor agentic commerce trends
– Discover services for your agent to buy
– Sell your services to agents
Thousands of services. Zero API keys. Powered by x402. https://t.co/dgrNV73MAJ pic.twitter.com/0QU9Bpb3kG
— nick.base.eth 🛡 (@Nick_Prince12) April 20, 2026
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Prince said the marketplace has a web interface “for humans to browse and evaluate services” and a programming layer that allows AI agents access to the platform to “search, filter, and integrate new capabilities autonomously at runtime without a human in the loop.”

The platform provides an AI agent with “skills,” or code on how to use a service, along with a wallet that gives it the ability to “buy services and also sell services,” Prince added.

The x402 protocol, named after the rarely used HTTP status code “402 Payment Required,” received support earlier this month from Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, which backed the creation of the x402 Foundation to govern the protocol.

American Express, Mastercard, Visa, Cloudflare, Shopify, Stripe, Circle, Base, Polygon Labs, the Solana Foundation, Thirdweb and KakaoPay also expressed their “initial intent and support” of the foundation.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said at the time that “there will be more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon,” echoing Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, who in January said that “literally billions of AI agents” will be transacting on blockchains in three to five years.

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