Evernorth COO Meg Nakamura said banks remain in a wait-and-see cycle, while clearer rules and real-world asset tokenization could broaden blockchain use in Japan.
Japanese financial institutions are positive on XRP's long-term potential, but broader adoption is being held back by a peer-validation dynamic that leaves banks reluctant to move before rivals do, Evernorth Chief Operating Officer Meg Nakamura said at WebX Asia 2026 in Tokyo. She said that stance reflects Japan's financial culture, where compliance, operational resilience and long-term risk management tend to matter more than first-mover advantage, leading firms to favor pilot programs, strategic collaborations and limited deployments over large commitments. Nakamura said the conversation is also widening beyond digital payments. While stablecoins have recently drawn attention for improving payment efficiency and cross-border settlement, she argued that tokenization (turning real-world assets into digital blockchain tokens) is emerging as the more important long-term use case. She pointed to assets including government bonds, equities, real estate, private credit, commodities and investment funds, saying blockchain networks such as the XRP Ledger could become important infrastructure for issuing, transferring and settling tokenized assets at institutional scale. Nakamura added that regulatory clarity is increasingly acting as a catalyst rather than a barrier, and analysts say Japan's advanced digital-asset framework provides a strong base for tokenization as rules become more defined.