Slash Vision Labs

Slash Vision Labs (legally incorporated as Slash Fintech Limited) is a crypto payments and IP content company founded in 2021 and headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, with operations centered on the Japanese and broader Asian market. Led by CEO Shinsuke Sato, the company raised a $1.5 million seed round in December 2022 from lead investor Maezawa Fund. Its stated mission is to put asset sovereignty directly in users' hands through self-custody infrastructure and stablecoin-based financial products.

Slash Payment

The company's original product is Slash Payment, a non-custodial Web3 payment gateway that launched on mainnet on August 15, 2022. The protocol enables merchants to accept over 1,400 token types while automatically settling in stablecoins — USDT, USDC, DAI, or JPYC — at optimal real-time rates via DEX aggregation. Merchants receive payment to their own revenue address without depositing assets to a centralized exchange or custody provider.

The fee structure charges payers between 0.2% and 0.6% as a settlement fee while merchants pay nothing. Supported chains at launch included Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche C-Chain, Fantom, and Arbitrum One, with Solana, Astar Network, OP Mainnet, and Mantle Network subsequently added. DEX routing draws on Uniswap V2, Curve.fi, Uniswap V3, and compatible aggregators.

Merchants integrate through three methods: a payment URL redirect, an in-page widget modal, or a QR code system released in October 2022 that requires no coding — merchants generate a QR code from the dashboard in three steps. E-commerce plugin support covers WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, Wix, OpenCart, and several others. As of publicly available data, over 4,000 merchants have enabled Slash Payment and the protocol has processed more than $180 million in total transaction volume since launch.

Smart contract V2 shipped in February 2023, achieving a 70% gas cost reduction for payers and adding support for wallet address changes. The original V1 included a configurable cashback percentage that was removed in V2.

Slash Card

Slash Card is a USDC-backed Visa card designed for the Japanese market, announced in February 2025. The program is structured around three parties: Slash Vision Labs as program manager, AIQITAS (Aikitas) as card issuer, and Orico (Orient Corporation) as BIN sponsor providing Visa network access. The card is described as Japan's first compliant crypto-backed credit card meeting the country's stringent crypto and payments regulations.

Users link the card to self-custodied wallets including MetaMask and Phantom. Spending draws on USDC held in those wallets; merchants receive Japanese yen through normal Visa settlement without requiring any special handling. The card also works with Google Pay. SBI VC Trade and Coincheck serve as USDC partners supporting the Japan market.

Pre-registration opened in June 2025. Initial issuance to pre-registered users began April 20, 2026, with general applications scheduled to open in August 2026.

Slash Earn and Slash App

Slash Earn offers stablecoin yield generation through DeFi liquidity provision and lending. The product is designed to remove the traditional trade-off between deploying capital productively and maintaining spending access — users can earn yield and spend via Slash Card simultaneously.

Slash App is a planned all-in-one Web3 application integrating Card, Exchange, and Earn functions under a single interface. The product targets users unfamiliar with crypto, aiming for a UX comparable to traditional finance apps with a single-phrase wallet setup flow.

SVL Token

The SVL token is the protocol's native governance and revenue-sharing asset. It is issued on Mantle Network, an EVM-compatible Layer 2 chain, with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. The token generation event took place in April 2024 following an IDO on Bybit Web3 priced at $0.0019 per token. A subsequent IEO on Gate.io in August 2024 sold tokens at $0.008.

SVL holders who stake their tokens receive SVL TimeLock NFTs — soulbound, non-transferable NFTs that grant voting power proportional to staking duration and quantity. One hundred percent of Slash Payment and Slash Card fee revenue is used to purchase Mantle Network's MNT token from the open market, which is then distributed to SVL TimeLock NFT holders as yield. Early unstaking incurs a penalty fee that decreases linearly to zero as the staking period ends; collected penalties flow to Slash reserves. The SVL Alpha-Base platform provides exclusive early access to partner project campaigns for stakers.

The Mantle Network partnership, formalized in February 2024, included a $250,000 mutual token swap between SVL and MNT completed in April 2024. The partnership positions Slash as a primary driver of Mantle adoption across Japanese and Asian markets.

IP Content Business and Solana Ecosystem

In August 2024, Slash Vision Labs announced an investment in Chiitan Coin (CTAN), a meme token built on Solana. Chiitan is a Japanese mascot character — a zero-year-old fairy baby otter created in 2017 — with approximately 1.97 million followers on X at the time of the announcement. Slash committed to developing DApps on Solana for the CTAN community, pursuing Tier 1 CEX listings for the token, and establishing what the company calls a Mascot Meme genre combining IP content with tokenomics.

Slash has also partnered with Minto Inc., a Tokyo-based entertainment startup that develops IP through characters, webtoons, and short dramas across markets in China, Thailand, and Vietnam. The collaboration aims to co-develop services integrating crypto with Minto's IP content. Additionally, Slash partnered with Superteam Earn, the Solana ecosystem's bounty and grants platform, running CTAN-denominated bounty programs including a referral partner program, a meme contest, and a community writing program. The company describes its intent to foster Solana ecosystem growth within the Asian market.

Partners and Infrastructure

Slash Vision Labs partners include Circle (for USDC), Orico and Thredd (card issuing infrastructure), Fireblocks (custody), Chainalysis (compliance), Uniswap, IDEMIA, HashKey, Kaia, and Eole (a Japanese fintech firm). An integration with Oasys, the gaming-focused blockchain, lets merchants on that network accept OAS token payments through the Slash Payment protocol. A partnership with Minna Bank was announced in June 2026, targeting stablecoin infrastructure development. In July 2026, the company was presenting at WebX, the annual crypto conference held in Tokyo.