Mitsui & Co.'s Crypto Arm Brings Tokenized Metals Asset Zipangcoin to OP Mainnet

Mitsui & Co. Digital Commodities (MDC), a subsidiary of Japanese trading giant Mitsui & Co., Ltd., its tokenized gold, silver, and platinum asset, Zipangcoin (ZPG), on OP Mainnet, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.

ZPG has been issued under Japan’s regulatory framework since 2022 and currently runs on Miyabi, a proprietary private blockchain developed by longtime crypto exchange bitFlyer.

The OP Mainnet deployment marks the first time the asset will be issued in a public blockchain ecosystem. Per the release, Japanese CEX GMO Coin will list ZPG on April 20.

MDC’s parent, Mitsui & Co., is a Fortune Global 500 conglomerate with a market cap of over $94 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway as its largest shareholder, the release notes.

MDC also stated in the release that the choice of OP Mainnet follows deliberate due diligence, highlighting that OP Stack chains processed over 6 billion transactions in 2025 — 29x growth in two years.

According to DefiLlama, OP Mainnet currently holds over $1.1 billion in bridged TVL, a $538 million stablecoin market cap, and $165 million in weekly DEX volume.

“Zipangcoin’s strength lies in the safety and transparency we have built since 2022 under Japan’s rigorous regulatory framework,” said Sho Miichi, MDC’s Representative Director & President.

“We are pleased to partner with Optimism to bring a high-quality, commodity-linked digital asset from Japan to investors worldwide.” Kyle Jenke, Chief Business Officer at OP Labs, described Japan’s regulatory clarity as “one of the most compelling markets for on-chain finance.”

The ZPG launch fits into a broader wave of institutional-grade assets moving on-chain. On-chain tokenized RWAs tripled to roughly $18.6 billion over the course of 2025, with analysts projecting the market could reach $2 trillion by 2030. Optimism has emerged as a preferred destination for regulated products: ether.fi recently migrated its crypto neobank — with $5.7 billion in TVL and around 50,000 active cards — from Scroll to OP Mainnet to access enterprise-grade payment infrastructure. A centuries-old commodity trading house choosing the same chain for a regulated physical-asset product signals the shift is broadening.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.