Grandshores $1 Billion Blockchain Fund to Open Crypto Stablecoin backed by Japanese Yen

Grandshores China To Raise HK$100 To Finance Yen-Pegged Crypto

Grandshores Technology Group, a Hong Kong-listed real estate company that recently switched to blockchain investment, is seeing to raise the equivalent of about $12.7 million through a digital token fund and use the money to launch a yen-backed stablecoin.

Grandshores Technology’s pivot to blockchain investment is the effect of an acquisition of SHIS by a company established by Yongjie Yao in May and its subsequent backdoor listing. Yao is also a founding partner of the 10 billion yuan (US$1.45 billion) Hangzhou Grandshores Fund backed by the Hangzhou government. The other backers of the fund include Li Xiaolai, the bitcoin tycoon of China.

“The dedicated fund is seeking contributions denominated in tether – the U.S.-dollar pegged cryptocurrency – from certified investors outside of China”, Yao said.

Besides, founding partners of the blockchain fund are already working with a mid-tier bank in Japan for the project, though they declined to disclose the name of the institution.

Articulating more broadly about developments in the blockchain space, Yao told SCMP that he requires blockchain to go mainstream within the next half-decade.

“Blockchain will become the mainstream technology in the next three to five years,” he said. “We are entering the next stage of blockchain evolution, a stage which is akin to when computer operating system was transiting from MS-DOS [disk operating system] to MS-Windows.”

Yao said he sees a market for a yen-linked stablecoin, and is confident of launching the token by the end of this year or early 2019 and the next anchor currencies Grandshores will explore are the Hong Kong dollar and Australian dollar.

“We believe cryptocurrency traders and exchanges will be potential takers of this stablecoin,” he said.

As of now, the founding partners of Hangzhou Grandshores fund, together with some of its affiliated funds under Grandshores Technology, have invested 500 million yuan globally in blockchain and cryptocurrency projects outside China. These include Zcash, an open-source cryptocurrency that offers selective transparency of transactions; blockchain start-up GX Chain and blockchain-based social media network ONO.