Author: TechFlow
According to a report by the Japanese crypto media Coinpost, on December 20, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan is pushing for crypto tax reform, including a 20% separate tax rate on crypto trading profits and the introduction of a loss carryforward system, in order to further enhance the competitiveness of the Japanese crypto market. The reform outline is currently in the "review stage".
The news has sparked widespread community interest in the Japanese crypto market.
The Japanese crypto market has always been a very unique entity: on the one hand, Japan, as the world's fourth-largest economy, is also one of the earliest countries to embrace the crypto industry, and has a good real-world foundation and compliance advantages under a well-developed regulatory system for the development of the crypto economy; on the other hand, it is precisely because of the intervention of regulations that the Japanese crypto market also has problems such as low efficiency, high taxes, and relative isolation.
With Bitcoin breaking through the $100,000 mark and crypto-friendly President Trump taking office, many see 2025 as a critical juncture for the crypto industry, and the crypto regulatory easing signals released by the Japanese government have sparked a strong interest in many people to layout the Japanese crypto ecosystem.
Based on this, with the simultaneous global launch of the native token JOC Coin on six exchanges on December 23, 2024 at 11:00 (Beijing time), Japan Open Chain (JOC) has further entered the public eye.
As a Layer1 public chain focused on practicality and compatible with Ethereum, JOC is managed by the Japan Blockchain Foundation under the G.U.Group, aiming to build a blockchain infrastructure that is compliant with Japanese law, secure, high-speed, and low-cost, and provide a stable, reliable, and compliant Web3 business development environment for enterprises and local governments.
The project name is a work of branding art, as we rarely see cases where the name of a country is directly written into the project name. The inclusion of the word "Japan" in JOC somehow reflects the project's aspiration to become the digital economic infrastructure of Japan's Web3, and its ambition and capabilities are further demonstrated through extensive cooperation with Japan's top national enterprises and deep penetration into the digital economy consumption sector in Japan.
In the future, starting from the Japanese market, JOC will also actively seek cooperation with enterprises in multiple countries to carry out international business, further advancing towards the development goal of becoming the cornerstone of the Web3 digital economy.
Another year-end is upon us, and as the core value carrier of the ecosystem, the simultaneous listing of JOC Coin on six global exchanges, will it drive JOC into a growth flywheel? As 2025 approaches, how will JOC take root in the Japanese crypto ecosystem and achieve large-scale adoption of Web3 in major real-world consumption scenarios?
Through JOC, let's delve into the mysterious Japanese crypto market and explore the specific reasons why JOC is worth paying attention to.
Compliance, an important prerequisite for blockchain to achieve inclusive digital economy
Like most Japanese crypto projects, we can clearly feel the unique character of Web2 elites doing Web3 projects in JOC.
This is understandable, on the one hand, there are not many VCs in Japan that focus on Crypto and Web3, and most of the active institutions are backed by Japanese Web2; on the other hand, the company behind JOC, G.U.Group, Inc., as a Tokyo Shibuya-based enterprise focused on providing Web3 solutions, its representative directors Hidekazu Kondo and Hiroaki Inaba both come from traditional Web2 giants.
This close relationship with Web2 has also given JOC a unique edge in terms of compliance, resources, and ecosystem.
Compliance has long been considered the only way for Web3 to stand in the sunshine and achieve large-scale implementation.
Due to the decentralized nature of Web3 projects based on blockchain, and the fact that most current Web3 projects are built on financial scenarios, they are very prone to issues such as fraud and market manipulation, seriously disrupting the centralized financial system led by the government. Especially in the field of cross-border transactions, some ill-intentioned Web3 projects can easily bypass customer verification (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, becoming a breeding ground for crime and terrorism, which is unacceptable to all countries.
And in this inevitable path, Japan is a pioneer in exploration.
On the one hand, since 1990, Japan has entered the "lost three decades", with the economy falling into a period of low growth, low employment, low inflation, low wealth, and low leverage, and Web3 is seen by Japan as an important layout to achieve a turnaround. As a crypto-friendly country, Japan recognized virtual currencies including Bit, ETH, XRP, and LTC as a means of payment as early as 2016, and on April 6, 2023, Japan also issued a white paper, viewing Web3 as a national strategy.
To this end, the Japanese government has invested a large amount of resources in promoting the research and application of blockchain technology. For example, the Cabinet Office of Japan has set up multiple special funds to support the innovation and practical application of blockchain technology.
On the other hand, Japan has also guided the compliant and healthy development of the crypto ecosystem through the establishment of a comprehensive regulatory framework: in 2016, Japan enacted the "Payment Services Act" and the "Financial Instruments and Exchange Act", with the Financial Services Agency responsible for the implementation of these regulations, focusing on exchange registration, network security measures, and anti-money laundering protocols.
Furthermore, Japan has also established the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA) as a self-regulatory organization approved by the government, responsible for raising industry standards and approving the listing of Tokens on exchanges.
In the following years, Japan continued to revise and optimize relevant policies around enhancing investor protection, cybersecurity, and anti-money laundering, and gradually incorporated crypto income into the tax system, forming a strict and comprehensive regulatory framework.
Although Japan's over-regulation of the crypto industry has brought many restrictions, resulting in low efficiency, lack of market vitality, and a slight lag in industry hotspots, it has effectively protected user asset safety in major incidents like FTX, and under the compliance framework, it can better attract the participation of traditional institutions, further promoting the integration of Web3 and the real world.
For JOC, Japan's unique regulatory system has also created a huge opportunity for the project to move towards compliance and integrate with a wider range of Web resources.
On the one hand, as early as this August, the JOC native token JOC Coin has announced that it has passed the review of the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA) and will be made available to retail investors through BitTrade, a top Japanese crypto exchange that has obtained a Japanese trading license. Under the complex regulatory review, the approval process for Japanese crypto projects takes at least 1 year, and JOC, which has already completed the compliance path, will undoubtedly have a first-mover advantage over other projects.
On the other hand, by observing the Japanese crypto market, we can see that the diversity of Japanese crypto projects is relatively low, mainly focusing on NFT and game-related projects. Although there are also public chain projects, the overall competition is smaller. Under stronger demand and less competitive pressure, JOC has further gained space for rapid development.
In fact, with the strong compliance advantage, many top-tier institutions in Japan have already looked favorably upon JOC:
We know that the JOC network is jointly operated by multiple blockchain operating partners to ensure the stability and credibility of the network. When we carefully examine the list of JOC's operators, many will be amazed at the strength of its lineup: it includes well-known companies such as CORGEAR Co.Ltd., a startup under the Sony Group, Dentsu Inc., NTT Communications under the NTT Group, G.U.Technologies Inc., insprout Corporation, Kudasai Co., Ltd., Minna Bank, Ltd., pixiv Inc., TIS Inc., extra mile Inc. under the Asahi Television Group, Kyoto University of the Arts, Hatena Co., Ltd., CAC Corporation, CYBERLINKS CO.,LTD., SBINFT Co., Ltd. and Nethermind.
It is worth mentioning that in 2025, when Japan releases a strong crypto-friendly signal, it is expected that more Japanese users, funds, and institutions will enter the crypto industry, and JOC will become the main platform to accommodate users, funds, and institutions.
How to better welcome the new wave of traffic and capital and improve retention has become a core issue.
From Stablecoins to NFTs: JOC Roots in the Japanese Market to Build a Consumer-Grade Ecosystem
In this cycle, the call for consumer-grade applications is gradually rising, but the "mass adoption" slogan has been shouted for years, and there is still an invisible wall between the crypto market and the real world. This is because building consumer-grade applications is not an easy task, as it not only requires real-world demand as value support, but also sets higher requirements for user scale, product quality, and user experience.
At this time, introducing Web3 solutions to the traditional Web2 business model to provide higher-quality and more transparent services has become an efficient choice to "stand on the shoulders of giants", and the integration of JOC's powerful Web2 resources and Web3 solutions also gives the project an innate advantage in quickly penetrating real-world consumption scenarios in ecosystem building.
According to the official website, JOC's ecosystem currently has more than 36 partner companies, including: 16 operators; 12 development partners; 5 stablecoin partners; 1 crypto exchage; 5 JOC partner products; and 1 Web3 business promotion partner (some projects have multiple business scenarios, so there is some overlap in the classification).
Wallets as the entry point for ecosystem traffic, low thresholds are the key to building seamless user experiences: Currently, JOC not only has the native compatible wallet G.U. Wallet, which allows users to easily and securely store and exchange crypto assets and NFTs, but has also established partnerships with multiple wallet projects including Fox Wallet.
Stablecoins are seen as an important hub connecting the crypto economy and the real financial world, and compliant stablecoins with higher credibility, more stable value support, and lower systemic financial risks are the trend, as they can effectively promote the standardization of the industry and expand the market scale.
In 2023, Japan implemented the revised "Fund Settlement Act", defining stablecoins as a new "electronic payment method", further clarifying the status of stablecoins within the Japanese legal framework and formulating detailed rules to regulate the issuance and use of stablecoins in Japan, bringing positive guidance for the development of compliant stablecoins.
Currently, JOC is collaborating with 5 top Japanese financial institutions, including Aozora Bank, Minna no Bank, ORIX Bank, and Shikoku Bank, to conduct demonstration experiments on the actual issuance of stablecoins. It is reported that this stablecoin will be usable in mainstream wallets such as MetaMask, and compared to cash payments, stablecoins have advantages in terms of cost and speed, so their use is expected to expand as a payment method for corporate payments and international remittances.
G.U. Coin Studio is the stablecoin issuance and management system provided by G.U. Technologies for financial institutions. Through G.U. Coin Studio, relevant parties can manage the issuance and distribution of stablecoins on JOC and connect with existing financial systems.
And beyond the banking payment system, the mature development of stablecoins has also brought the grand narrative of RWA, which has grown rapidly this year, to the JOC ecosystem: we know that stablecoins are one of the most important use cases in the RWA track, and stablecoins will play important roles such as value measurement, transaction medium, payment method, and liquidity hub in the development of RWA, and compliant stablecoins will further amplify their role and become a stronger driving force for the RWA track.
In the future, with the maturity of JOC's compliant stablecoins, combined with JOC's strong resources in Japanese technology, communications, social media, cultural creativity, and government work, the on-chaining of more real-world assets becomes possible, further consolidating JOC's important position as the foundation for the development of the Japanese digital economy.
In fact, this consumer-grade trend closely related to RWA is already evident in JOC's ecosystem use cases:
Japan has long been seen as a fertile ground for NFT development due to its strong IP resources in anime, games, and other areas, and JOC's ecosystem also has high-quality consumer-grade NFT partners:
Kyoto University of the Arts, as a JOC network operator, is also Japan's largest art university, and the high-quality art works it nurtures will provide premium resources for the development of tracks such as NFTs; SBINFT, one of the operators, is a subsidiary of SBI Holdings, focusing on Web3 businesses centered on NFTs; SUSHI TOP MARKETING is dedicated to all the functions needed for NFT marketing, including a patented NFT Shot; NFT Garden, as a multi-chain NFT issuance platform, plays an important role as an incubator for high-quality NFT projects in the JOC ecosystem.
It is worth mentioning that JOC also collaborates with the government, leveraging the unique attributes of NFTs in identity ID, and based on JOC, the e-Kaga Citizen system provides e-Kaga Citizen ID NFTs for residents of Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, for population registration and management, which is an important attempt by Japan to use digital technology to build a smart city.
In addition, JOC has also collaborated with Japan Post Group to launch the Yamabe Town 70th Anniversary NFT art collection as part of the Mirai Post Office initiative, where users can support Yamabe Town by purchasing NFTs, and the sales proceeds will be used for the maintenance and development of Yamabe Town. The two types of NFTs sold out within two months.
Furthermore, JOC's ecosystem cooperation map also includes infrastructure and development service projects, content service platforms, brand and marketing promotion platforms, digital banking for smartphones, decentralized loyalty programs, digital manga platforms, and more, providing its ecosystem participants with experiences that break the divide between Web3 and the real world.
It is worth mentioning that the unique regulatory environment has shaped Japan's distinct crypto market, and we often see the phenomenon of mismatched hot spots in the Japanese crypto market. Therefore, for Japanese crypto projects, there is a higher demand to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the international market and promote the integration of the Japanese crypto market into the global market, and JOC has already taken action.
In September this year, the cross-chain project Bifrost under the blockchain technology company PhiloLab Technology announced a strategic investment in JOC, with the aim of promoting the market expansion of Web3 enterprises in Japan and globally, and building a blockchain ecosystem oriented towards practical applications. Bifrost plans to provide JOC with interoperability technology support and deploy decentralized application (DApp) services on its network to further activate the JOC network ecosystem.
According to the signals released by JOC on social media platforms, JOC will actively seek cooperation with international crypto projects in the future, on the one hand to promote the outbound expansion of the Japanese crypto economy, and on the other hand to introduce global crypto hotspots, further building a powerful blockchain infrastructure to support the development of the global Web3 digital economy with Japan as the starting point.
Of course, under the grand vision, the more important question is:
The upper-level blueprint has been well-drawn, but how can the underlying technology provide strong support, providing a safe, efficient, low-cost and seamless ecosystem participation experience for tens of thousands of users in different scenarios?
PoA Consensus Mechanism: The Key Choice to Support Large-Scale Adoption
The PoA (Proof of Authority) consensus mechanism is the key design for the high performance and scalability of the JOC network.
In other words, the authority is the core in the PoA mechanism.
Specifically, in the PoA consensus mechanism, the number of nodes can be unlimited, JOC's choice of PoA as the underlying consensus is partly due to the important consideration of achieving permissionless access as a public chain, in theory, anyone can participate in blockchain operations by setting up their own nodes/servers and connecting them to the blockchain network, with higher freedom and inclusiveness, which can bring more diverse cultures and innovations to the ecosystem.
At the same time, the number of network validators (i.e. operators) adopting the PoA mechanism is limited, and these validators are the "core" mentioned above. Nodes are mainly responsible for synchronizing blockchain ledger information, while validators are responsible for verifying transactions and packing blocks. Due to the limited number of validators, the PoA consensus mechanism-based blockchain is far more efficient and scalable than public chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Of course, there are also many community members who have doubts about the degree of decentralization of the PoA mechanism, after all: a limited number of validators = a limited degree of decentralization, if the validators themselves do evil, launch attacks on the network or tamper with the ledger, it is easy to cause damage to the entire blockchain network.
To this end, JOC has also taken multiple measures to maintain the underlying security of the network:
In terms of the number of validators, the JOC network is currently in its early stage of development, with 16 validators in the network, but in the future, as the pace of ecosystem building accelerates, JOC will strive to expand the list of validators to 21, further enhancing the degree of decentralization.
In terms of threshold setting, JOC has extremely high requirements for validators, who come from different industries and different interest groups, and are almost all large-scale entities with extremely high reputations in Japan. To ensure the diversity of validators, JOC also plans to introduce reliable crypto companies and startups that can contribute to the ecosystem as validators in the future. Due to the extremely high access threshold, the PoA consensus mechanism also has certain guarantees in terms of security.
In this way, JOC has achieved a balance between security and efficiency through the PoA mechanism: according to official data, JOC can execute thousands of token transactions or hundreds of complex smart contract interactions per second, with transaction fees controlled within 1 yen and able to achieve final confirmation within 5 seconds.
It is worth noting that JOC is fully compatible with Ethereum, which brings greater convenience for the interconnection between the two ecosystems: for Ethereum projects that want to enter the Japanese market or more consumer-oriented scenarios, they can seamlessly migrate to the JOC ecosystem; while for developers interested in building on JOC, the vast development tools and resources of Ethereum will greatly reduce the threshold for developers and improve efficiency, further expanding the imagination space for building a rich ecosystem for JOC.
JOC Coin Simultaneously Launched on 6 Global Exchanges, Multiple Milestones to be Achieved
Of course, for JOC, the biggest ecosystem event this year is the launch of the JOC Coin token. As the native token of JOC, the total supply of JOC Coin is 1 billion, with no additional issuance mechanism, and the deflationary economic model means that the token value will gradually increase over time. The main use of the token is to pay transaction fees on the Japanese public chain, and its specific allocation and release rules are as follows:
Recently, JOC announced that in order to ensure the liquidity after the IEO issuance, the JOC Coin, the native token of JOC, will be simultaneously launched on six global exchanges on Monday, December 23, 2024 at 11:00 (Beijing time):
Gate.io
MEXC Global
LBank
XT.com
Bit2Me
BitTrade (* Note: formerly Huobi Japan)
This is the first time Japan has achieved such a global synchronized launch, and global investors including Japan will be able to purchase JOC Coin at that time. The total daily spot trading volume of these six exchanges exceeds 2.7 trillion yen, which is equivalent to 75 times the daily trading volume of all crypto exchanges in Japan, and can provide sufficient market liquidity for JOC Coin. In the future, JOC will also strive to push for the listing of JOC Coin on more mainstream exchanges, providing more opportunities for a wider range of users to access and understand JOC Coin.
It is reported that in the previous IEO on the BitTrade platform, the planned total sales of JOC Coin was 12 billion yen, including 5 billion yen for the priority early bird sale and 7 billion yen for the regular lottery sale. However, the actual application amount far exceeded expectations, cumulatively attracting over 90 billion yen in participation, demonstrating the users' optimism about JOC and their high expectations for the future development of the JOC ecosystem and the performance of the JOC Coin token as it is simultaneously launched on six major exchanges.
Conclusion
For a long time, the Japanese Web3 market has been a force to be reckoned with.
According to the data analysis on the Japanese market in the article "The Truth of the Web3 Market in the Asia-Pacific Region" published by TechFlow in 2023, among Japan's 120 million population, the number of crypto users in Japan exceeds 5 million, based on the standard of having a CEX account licensed by the Japanese Financial Services Agency.
With the relaxation of crypto regulations in Japan by 2025, and the good expectations for the global crypto market in 2025, the Japanese crypto market may usher in a new round of growth.
As a JOC with a full stack of compliance and resource advantages, it is crucial to leverage its own strengths and seize market opportunities to become a key player in the new round of competition.
It seems that JOC also understands this very well.
In the upcoming 2025, in addition to continuous technological iterations to achieve higher TPS, stronger scalability, and a more seamless user experience, JOC's stablecoin pegged to the Japanese yen/other foreign currencies in collaboration with major banks will also soon be introduced to the community, bringing more momentum to the global inclusive digital economy that JOC is committed to building.
At the turn of the year, it is more appropriate to look to the future.
The community remains hopeful about the Japanese crypto market and the subsequent growth performance of JOC.
