“This is the first time that the Japanese government has actively promoted the Web3 growth strategy” Yuki Kamimoto explains the flow of the “blockchain area” in recent years (TOKYO FM+)-Yahoo! News
TOKYO FM’s program “DIGITAL VORN Future Pix” where Yuri Sasakawa serves as a personality. In this program, we will welcome frontrunners in the digital scene as guests and hear about the future society that awaits us. The broadcast on Saturday, September 17th was delivered with Yuki Kamimoto, CEO of N.Avenue Co., Ltd., as a guest.
Kamimoto joined Yahoo Japan Corporation in 2013. After engaging in media and advertising business development centered on Yahoo! News, he was in charge of launching new businesses with overseas tech venture companies. He is engaged in research and business development in the blockchain area at Z Corporation Co., Ltd., an investment fund of the group. From 2018, he was responsible for the launch of N.Avenue and assumed the position of President and Representative Director.
◆ Operates the official Japanese version of “CoinDesk”
N.Avenue, which has a media business at its core, has an exclusive license in Japan for CoinDesk, one of the world’s leading media companies in the fields of crypto assets and blockchain (one of the technologies called distributed ledger technology). While mainly disseminating information through the news media “coindesk JAPAN”, we also host “btokyo”, one of the largest blockchain conferences in Japan. “coindesk JAPAN” provides the latest news about digital assets in Japan and overseas, as well as charts and stock lists of major crypto assets (virtual currencies) such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as links to domestic exchanges. Even though we speak of digital assets, there are various and wide-ranging areas, so Mr. Kamimoto says, “I’m aiming for a place where people who want to know such information can systematically understand it.” .
◆ Looking back on the blockchain area at the beginning of “N.Avenue”
In 2018, when Mr. Kamimoto became involved in research in the blockchain area at Z Corporation, the expression Web3 (a general term for the next-generation distributed Internet built using blockchain technology) was not yet common. He said, “NFT was technically available, but it wasn’t talked about that much. However, blockchain technology is expected to bring about a paradigm shift (dramatic change in values) as the next thing to come after the Internet. ), so it was a time when I put out such an antenna.” In 2018, when N.Avenue was launched, the virtual currency exchange “Coincheck” was hacked from the outside, and the virtual currency “NEM” worth about 58 billion yen was stolen. Mr. Kamimoto said, “At the time, cryptocurrencies had the image of being ‘suspicious’ and ‘scary.'” However, the blockchain area had great potential, so he recalled the early days of the company, saying, “In order to develop the financial market, we need to have solid information, so we started working from there.” After that, Facebook (currently Meta) announced the issuance of the virtual currency “Libra” (*currently abandoned), and China also launched the digital renminbi. After that, due to monetary easing due to the corona crisis, “institutional investors and business companies began to invest in crypto assets, and it began to be recognized as an asset class similar to other financial assets, and technology and NFT and Defi Furthermore, with the emergence of the concept of Web3, the image of “suspicious” has suddenly changed to the mainstream as “great innovation.” And explain the flow of the past few years. Based on this trend, N.Avenue strives to disseminate highly reliable information under the mission of “creating a map and compass for the era of value revolution” and “creating an appropriate path for each person.” I want to go,” he says.
