Digital Garage shares extended gains in the afternoon session on August 19 after the company said it had signed an agreement with JCB and Lawson to run a proof-of-concept for stablecoin-based in-store payments at Lawson locations. The pilot will center on foreign visitors to Japan using the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin USDC for purchases through existing POS systems rather than dedicated new terminals, while the companies assess payment convenience and point-of-sale integration as Digital Garage works toward an offline stablecoin payments ecosystem. The agreement brings together JCB's stablecoin payment service, Digital Garage's payment API and backend technology, and Lawson's store operations expertise as the companies assess obstacles to using stablecoins in physical retail. The announcement came about a week after Digital Garage began commercial operations of DG Stablecoin Payment Service, or DG SPS, signaling that its crypto-asset-related business is moving from infrastructure launch toward implementation. The effort also builds on two Lawson stablecoin payment tests earlier in August and comes as Japan's stablecoin rules, shaped by the revised Payment Services Act that took effect in June 2023, make real-world merchant adoption a key issue for payment providers.