Four of Japan’s virtual currency firms established the Japan Metaverse Association (JMA) yesterday with aims to promote metaverse technology and improve the framework for implementing user protection measures.
Fast facts
- The Japan Metaverse Association aims to help the country become a forerunner in the race toward the metaverse by collecting and sharing essential information from inside and outside Japan with member individuals and companies. The association was established by virtual currency trading exchange FXcoin, crypto wallet provider Ginco, digital asset management firm Coinbest, and crypto asset investment solutions provider Intelligence Unit.
- Tomoo Onishi, CEO of FXcoin and also the representative director of the association, wrote on JMA’s website that “there are few people who understand the blockchain and NFT (non-fungible token) technologies that support the metaverse, and even if they understand the technologies, it is not easy to develop them into a business.” Onishi mentioned that another barrier is that most of the information on the metaverse is in English, while almost none is available in Japanese.
- The metaverse is gaining an increasing amount of attention from local businesses. Tokyo-based VR (virtual reality) company HIKKY raised around US$57 million to expand its metaverse business last month, partnering with mobile phone operator NTT Docomo. Mogura, a news organization dedicated to virtual reality technology, held a webinar earlier this month on the metaverse with hopes to attract more investment and partnerships from overseas to the local metaverse industry.