Author: AB Kuai.Dong, Skyland Foundation Ambassador
In the wave of Crypto going overseas, due to the cheap exchange rate, low threshold for work visas, and easy to obtain permanent residency, many Crypto project parties and exchanges have set up offices in Japan in the past year as offshore offices to serve the global market. This year is also the year when Tokyo and Osaka become special financial zones, and the policy of obtaining permanent residency through investment has officially entered the countdown.
So what are the famous teams in Japan? What are their sizes and numbers? This article will sort out the details.
A team of 100 people
In 2022, Binance acquired the Japanese compliant exchange SEBC through a backdoor listing. In late 2023, it was renamed Binance Japan and officially launched Japan’s compliant business. In the same year, it established cooperation with Japan’s leading bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Bank, and planned to issue Japanese yen stablecoins. Affected by the tightening of Singapore’s work visas and US regulatory policies in 2023, some employees who did not obtain overseas work visas were assigned to Binance Japan. Since then, Binance’s Tokyo office has begun a large-scale expansion.
· BitFlyer is a leading compliant exchange in Japan. In the early days of the company, its shareholders were basically financial conglomerates such as Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Hoei Bank, and Mitsubishi UFJ. This year, the company acquired the bankrupt FTX Japan subsidiary, further consolidating its position as a leading compliant exchange in Japan. Although BitFlyer started in Japan, it has also been seeking international expansion.
Coincheck is a first-tier exchange in Japan. It has a higher frequency of listing coins than its Japanese counterparts. It has publicly cooperated with Animoca Brands and Circle. In May of this year, the company planned to seek a listing on the Nasdaq in the United States through SPAC.
Bitbank is one of the few exchanges in Japan that supports overseas companies to register and open accounts, and provides customer service support in Chinese and English. In 2022, the company invested in Japan’s public game chain Oasys and established cooperation with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
SBI Crypto is a subsidiary of SBI, a leading Japanese brokerage firm. In the past few years, the company has acquired and merged a number of Crypto companies and operates Bitcoin and Litecoin mining pools. The current team is relatively diverse, with employees from China, the United States, and Australia.
Small and medium-sized teams of dozens of people
Cardano is the Japanese team’s project with the highest market value on CMC. It has two co-founders who have been working and living in Japan for a long time. The team was also one of the earliest projects to gain dividends from Japan during the ICO boom of that year. The ADA it issued was once considered by the Japanese community to be the Japanese version of Ethereum. Currently, the Japanese team is still operating and there are also offline activities around it on a daily basis.
Backpack is an exchange and multi-chain wallet invested and supported by the Multicoin and Solana Foundations. It has a co-founder who leads the product technology department and conducts R&D and operations of Backpack in its office in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The team is still recruiting and expanding.
B2 C2 is an international liquidity market maker with hundreds of employees worldwide, including dozens in its Tokyo office. The company was once the largest liquidity provider for XRP, and has also provided liquidity market making services to well-known projects such as Blockdaemon and Stakewise.
Cointelegraph Japan is an internationally renowned leading Crypto media with an independent team in Tokyo. The Japanese team also manages Cointelegraph’s Chinese, Indonesian and Korean sites.
· MEXC is a well-known old exchange in the circle - MEXC, which has an office in Japan, mainly to meet the operational service needs of the Asian time zone. It is the second offshore office besides Malaysia.
Amber Japan is the Japanese subsidiary of market maker Amber, with registered capital of 800 million yen. At its peak, the company acquired DeCurret, which was registered with the Financial Services Agency, and completed local compliance work. Later, when the parent company was involved in debt rumors, it was considered for sale. It is currently rumored that the acquisition has been completed by a Japanese consortium.
Oasys is a Layer 1 public chain, which is supported by investments from NGC, Kucoin, and Jump. It has established cooperative relationships with many well-known Japanese game companies to help their IPs issue NFTs and game props on the blockchain.
AStar is a long-established public chain project in Japan. It has received investments from Polychain, Coinbase, and Binance. This year, it cooperated with Sony to establish a Crypto accelerator and has now turned to the zkEVM track.
Jasmy is one of the earliest Crypto + IoT projects in Japan. It is also one of the few Japanese projects whose tokens are listed on Binance and Coinbase. It is currently ranked 56th in the world in terms of market value. Many Chinese investors are also paying attention to it. It has now turned to the DePIN track.
CoinPost is Japan’s leading local Crypto media. Its annual webX summit has a great influence.
Double jump is the parent company of Oasys, which has incubated and launched well-known IP NFT projects such as “Captain Tsubasa” and “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.
A small team of a few to a dozen people
Hashed is the largest Crypto fund in South Korea, but it also has a research group in Japan. Every year, it will co-host the Tokyo Blockchain Leaders Summit with other companies. The summit will invite many founders who have been invested by Hashed to participate.
Skyland is the largest Crypto fund registered with the Financial Services Agency in Japan and one of the few Japanese institutions that actively invests in Chinese projects. It has invested in Taiko, Merlin, Bitlayer, Unisat, BitSmiley and other well-known projects in China.
IVC is a global seed fund in Japan. Its full name is Infinity Ventures Crypto. It is the same company as the operator of the Kyoto IVS Summit and has invested in well-known projects such as YGG, Mirror, and Scroll.
Azuki is an internationally renowned NFT project. It has a dedicated artist studio in Japan that provides design and local operations for Azuki. It is also a blue-chip NFT project well known to many Japanese investors.
Mask Network is a Chinese-speaking crypto project that entered Japan relatively early. It is well-known in Japanese peer circles. 0xCryptoBaby, a well-known Japanese community KOL, is also a member of Mask. Mask is the main sponsor of annual international conferences related to Japan.
OneKey is an open source wallet service provider that has received investments from Dragonfly, Coinbase, and Framework. The founder moved to Japan early on, and there are also relevant members responsible for business expansion in Japan.
Intmax is a Layer2 public chain that has received investments from SNZ, Hashkey, and Mask. Its founder, Mai Fujimoto, is a well-known figure in the Japanese Crypto circle. She was called Miss Bitcoin by the media for her early introduction to Bitcoin technology and value in Japan.
Myshell is an AI consumer project that has received investments from Dragonfly, OKX, and Folius. Currently, some of its core members have set up companies and offices in Japan.
KEKKAI is an on-chain security testing company that has received investments from Bixin, Skyland, and Mask. Its founder is a core member of the Waseda University Blockchain Association and has helped many internationally renowned projects to hold hackathons in Japan.
TON is a public chain created by Telegram. It has dedicated ambassadors and offline ecological offices in Tokyo. In the previous Tokyo roadshow, 5 Japanese project teams based on TON presented and shared their experiences.
Ripple is a leading Crypto project that developed the Japanese market early on. It has a joint venture with SBI and has offices and operations in Japan. The main liquidity provider for early coins was a market-making team from Japan.
Animoca Japan is the Japanese subsidiary of Animoca, which has received investments from West Japan Railway and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, which are shareholders of Japanese gaming union Apricot Planet, and has established partnerships with Mitsui & Co. and KDDI.
YGG Japan is an independent Japanese company of YGG, which has received investments from Animoca, Gate, and IVC. It has planned and organized many offline blockchain game events in Japan and has a certain influence.
BYTOM is a well-known chain in the Chinese-speaking world. It officially landed in Tokyo this year and opened a Tokyo office. It is currently transforming to AI.
Aki is a consumer task platform that has received investments from Oak, Mask, and CatcherVC. Before issuing the token, the team had moved to Japan and established a Tokyo office.
MyToken is a very senior soft wallet company in the circle. Its founders and core members have moved to Tokyo and gradually established a Tokyo office.
Gate is a very senior Crypto exchange in the industry. It has a global team in Japan that serves the Asia-Pacific time zone and has established a Tokyo office.
OKCoin is OKX’s compliance station in Japan. It has an Asian time zone team in Japan that supports global station listing and legal matters, and has established a Tokyo office.
Atomicals Market is the largest Bitcoin ARC20 trading market. Its founder has lived in Tokyo for a long time and is a senior blockchain technology developer in the Tokyo Chinese community.
In addition to the above, there are dozens of less well-known global Crypto companies in Japan, which mainly provide offshore operations, development outsourcing, and Japanese market docking for projects. I hope the above content can help you understand the latest Japanese Crypto market conditions. Thank you for reading.