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I’m Obi( @obnty ), the founder of NodeTokyo, the first tech-focused international blockchain conference in Japan and the dev/student blockchain community CryptoAge.
Since the last weekend, this year’s longest holiday season “Golden Week“ has started in Japan. During Golden Week on May 1st, Japan will enter a new imperial era “Reiwa”(meaning “beautiful harmony”) with a new emperor enthroned. Historic week ahead!
On to this week’s update covering the happenings mainly from April 23-29, 2019.
💼Enterprises
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation(SMBC) announced they will start blockchain-based trade finance services using Marco Polo Network in late 2019 - Link
SMBC is the third-largest bank by total assets in Japan.
Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of SBI Holdings joins Ripple Lab’s board of directors - Link
He has been publicly saying he wants to integrate Ripple and R3.
SBI invested $15M into Swiss startup Tangem, the maker of a crypto card wallet - Link
iBank, the subsidiary of Fukuoka Financial Group(FFG) has started a blockchain-based loyalty point platform - Link(JP)
FFG is the largest regional bank by total assets in Japan.
NTT Communications to launch an innovation lab for blockchain, AI and IoT at their data center in Bangkok - Link
With this innovation lab, NTT Communications intend to introduce a playground for customers and partners to do proof-of-concept and development for blockchain and other emerging tech.
💱Exchanges
Coincheck started the first integration with its parent company Monex Securities by converting Monex reward points into crypto - Link
Monex published the annual financial statements last week, stating the annual loss for Crypto Asset Business Division (which is composed of Coincheck) was 1.73 billion yen ≒ $15.5M
Coincheck also plans to launch US exchange in this July - Link
Full English financial report here - Link
📖Regulation
FSA(Financial Services Agency) has reportedly carried out on-site inspection to Huobi Japan and Fisco Exchange - Link
Reported by Reuters Japan.
👋Meetups / Events
BLOCKCHAIN Tech MEETUP OSAKA, a series of blockchain lecture programs will start from May 22nd - Link(JP)
Organized by Kindai University, Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Kansai Institute of Information Systems.Decrypt Tokyo Hackathon will be held on June 8-9th - Link
Co-organized by Quantstamp, NodeTokyo, Neutrino, HashHub, and supported by OmiseGO, Microsoft and several other leading Japanese enterprises in blockchain.
📝Sidenotes / Others
WSJ reported Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank has invested in bitcoin back in 2017 and lost $130M - Link
Japan will enter a new imperial era with a new emperor on May 1st - Link
That’s all for now. See you next week! - Obi
You can check out the past issue #1 from here.
#2 from here
#3 from here
#4 from here