Here’s the first edition of “Week in Japan Crypto” covering the latest news around crypto / blockchain in Japan mainly from March 23-30, 2019.
I’m the host Yusuke Obinata(Obi), the founder of NodeTokyo, the first tech-focused international blockchain conference in Japan and CryptoAge, the blockchain community of devs and students.
⛓Startups
US-based blockchain security company, Quantstamp officially announced its expansion to Japan with investments from Nomura Holdings and Digital Garage. - Link
LayerX announced Zerochain, the first implementation of a privacy-preserving and account-based blockchain on Substrate. - Link
💱Exchanges
New exchange TAOTAO, a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan is set to launch in May, started user registration. - Link
Rakuten Wallet, a subsidiary of Rakuten received a virtual currency exchange license from Financial Services Agency (FSA). - Link
Rakuten is the e-commerce giant and one of the biggest credit card issuers in Japan
Another new exchange, DeCurret also got the exchange license from the FSA, expected to start operating in April. - Link
DeCurret is a joint venture of 15+ big traditional Japanese companies like telco, banks, real estate, securities and insurance companies.
💼Enterprises
Z Corporation, a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan launched CoinDesk Japan
MoneyPartners and Daiwa Securities made the official business partnership and set to form a JV to start cryptocurrency exchange business including trading of digital assets. - Link
MoneyPartners is the first company to get the virtual currency exchange license from the FSA in 2017, and Daiwa Securities is the second largest securities brokerage in Japan
Financial service giant SBI’s money transfer app MoneyTap got investments from 13 local banks. - Link
MoneyTap is using Ripple’s blockchain solution xCurrent.SBI also established a new subsidiary to manufacture mining chips, and appointed Adam Traidman, the founder of BRD wallet as the CEO - Link
JR East, the biggest railway company and the biggest e-money(SUICA) provider in Japan confirmed they have been in early discussion to add cryptocurrencies as a payment method for SUICA. - Link
Suica card is a pre-paid e-money card widely available in Japan at 450K+ places such as convenience stores, taxies and vending machines.
📖Regulation
FSA has set to add new rules to tighten margin tradings on cryptocurrency exchanges - Link
Japanese court has acquitted a man who was accused of illicitly mining cryptocurrency by using the computing power of visitors to his website with Coinhive software - Link
👋Meetups / Events
Jack Dorsey visited Japan for Square's press conference, and got interviewed by Japanese crypto media “New Economy” for his view on cryptocurrencies - Link
Zcash held the first meetup in Japan with its founder Zooko - Link
“Tokyo DOT day” will be organized by Web3 Foundation and CryptoAge on April 9th at DMMcom HQ office. - Link
Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood from Parity / Web3 Foundation and several other core developers will gather in Tokyo.
That’s all for now. See you next week! - @obnty