Japan built a functioning banking system based on XRP while the rest of the world debated cryptocurrencies’ legal status. In 2016, the SBI Ripple Asia consortium was created and XRP entered the Japanese market in 2017, with the Financial Services Agency immediately establishing clear rules for digital assets. This pragmatic approach transformed XRP from a speculative asset into an element of the everyday economy by 2026: SBI Shinsei Bank pays interest on deposits directly in XRP, SBI Holdings distributed 10 billion yen (approximately $64 million) in retail bonds with XRP bonuses, and travel operators like Tobu Top Tours use XRP Ledger technology for domestic prepaid settlements. Japan gained a time advantage by initially treating XRP not as a speculative instrument, but as ready-to-use payments infrastructure for modernizing its banking system.
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