Two shops in Tokyo's Haneda Airport Terminal 3 — "Edo Food Inn" and "Edo Event Hall" on the fourth-floor "Edo Koji" — have started accepting a new payment method: travelers open their MetaMask wallet to generate a QR code, the store clerk scans it, and the settlement in USDC completes within seconds. The trial will run until February 28.
Why Solana and an Airport?
NetStars ultimately chose USDC on Solana over Ethereum or other major blockchains. The reason is pragmatic: airport retail requires extremely low latency. Solana's high-speed processing and shorter address formats better suit high-traffic, high-frequency transaction environments. The system includes a 30-second transaction timeout; if it fails, the payment is automatically canceled and an error notification in English is sent to international travelers.
Choosing Haneda Airport also makes sense. As one of Japan's most important international aviation hubs, Terminal 3 primarily serves foreign travelers. The initial target for stablecoin payments are inbound visitors who hold USDC but may not have yen. MetaMask's multilingual interface, in-store multilingual signage, and automatic yen-to-dollar exchange rate display all point to the same design intent: reducing payment friction for international travelers.
Merchants Stay Crypto-Free: The Gateway Encapsulates Everything
For any retail payment scheme, merchant experience determines scalability. The Haneda trial's design is pragmatic: merchants receive transaction information through the StarPay gateway and ultimately settle in yen, without any need to handle digital asset conversion or Web3 operations. For store owners, accepting USDC is no different from accepting Apple Pay — scan, confirm, settle. The technical complexity of cryptocurrency is encapsulated in the payment gateway's backend. This structure means stablecoin payments don't require merchants to "believe in crypto," only to trust the payment service provider they already use.
Japan's Stablecoin Regulation: Legislation First, Pilots Follow
The Haneda trial's realization owes much to Japan's prior regulatory groundwork on stablecoins. In June 2023, Japan revised the Payment Services Act, defining fiat-pegged stablecoins as "electronic payment instruments" (EPIs) and restricting issuance to banks, money transfer service providers, and trust companies. This framework is among the strictest globally, but also provides the clearest compliance pathway.
In June 2025, Japan's parliament passed an amendment to the Payment Services Act, easing reserve requirements: issuers can allocate up to 50% of reserves to low-risk assets (such as Japanese or US government bonds with maturities of three months or less), instead of holding the entire amount in bank demand deposits. The amendment is expected to take effect by June 2026, giving stablecoin issuers more flexible capital management.
Japan's domestic stablecoin ecosystem is rapidly taking shape. In October 2025, JPYC Inc. received registration from the Financial Services Agency and officially launched Japan's first fully compliant yen stablecoin, JPYC, backed by bank deposits and Japanese government bonds as full reserves. SBI Holdings and Startale Group have also signed a memorandum to launch another yen stablecoin in Q2 2026.
Notably, NetStars itself is building further: it has formed an alliance with NetX, JPYC, and Progmat to create Japan's first regulated yen stablecoin payment infrastructure. If successful, over 600,000 payment terminals under NetStars could directly connect to the stablecoin settlement network, enabling 24/7 programmable payments.
The current two duty-free shops at Haneda are small. But as a proof of concept, it tests whether stablecoins can operate within a compliant framework, in a real retail setting, without merchants touching crypto. The answer is yes — at least technically. The real tests lie ahead: from two shops to 600,000 terminals, from USDC to yen stablecoins, from airport duty-free to convenience stores and restaurants. Each step involves regulatory approval, merchant education, user experience optimization, and the fundamental question: will consumers actually use stablecoins to buy things?