Bitcoin Forum

There seems to have been a radical change in the last few days on mtgox in Japanese yen:

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxJPY#czsg2012-03-01zeg2012-08-15ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzcv

I've always kept my eye on this chart as mtgox is in Japan, but I was always disappointed until the last few days.
Is there any known reason for this?

It means that the word of bitcoin is passing around, at least I hope it is this.

Perhaps this is the reason? https://mtgox.com/press_release_20120815.html

According to MtGox, a few banks automatically convert the wires they send to Japan to JPY, even though the wire was not denominated in JPY.

I'm not so sure, since I think mt.gox has a Hong Kong bank account. And it's being going on for a few days.

See this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=98988.0

They have an account in Japan.

OK - but it also states "Starting September 1st, 2012 " - but perhaps that's why they need to deal with this issue and perhaps explains it.
Though I'd much rather hear someone telling me that the Japanese have decided that Bitcoin is the new Tamagotchi - anyone?
Is Bitcoin the new Tamagotchi?

This is not related. The JPY conversion is a stupid fuckup on the part of the intermediate bank, because they convert USD --> JPY and then JPY --> USD instead of going USD --> USD.

It's a well thought-through fuck-up as they charge money for the conversions  ;)

Maybe it's just because this video conference?  :o
twitter ‏@rogerkver
I just presented Bitcoin to over 150 business people in Japan via skype for over an hour.
http://twitter.com/rogerkver/status/233164241799098368/photo/1 (http://twitter.com/rogerkver/status/233164241799098368/photo/1)

If that's the reason then it really shows how powerful these simple meetups and proselytizing can be.
The same thing happened in China a few weeks ago and it seems to have made a big difference.
50% (arbitrary guess) of people who hear about bitcoin will understand the potential straight away.

The japanese should like bitcoin because forex trading is quite popular there. Before the 2008 crisis there were a lot of japanese housewives playing the "carry trade", borrowing in yen and depositing into USD, EUR, AUD and ISK, to make money on the interest rate spread.

Google "mrs watanabe carry trade" for details.

I've really been surprised at how little activity there is in Japan.    For the world's third largest economy and the tenth most populous nation, I'ld have figured Bitcoin would have gained much more traction by now. 

There aren't even any individuals offering to do local trades there (shows the closest trader is in Korea)
 - https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/japan/tokyo

Hmm, and the Japanese section of this forum is relegated to "other" with a mere 2 pages of activity since 2010.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=877.0

I'm working on some interesting things in Japan.
More Bitcoin stuff will start happening here soon.

Later this month,  I will be giving a much bigger presentation on Bitcoins in Akihabara  (The electronics district in Tokyo)
I will try to have it video taped and put on youtube.

I think the biggest holdup currently, is that there are no Japanese language wallets yet.

Even though Satoshi is supposedly Japanese, we never really have major Japanese participation.

According to the internets, most japanese don't know english and don't care about stuff outside their country.
So there.

The prevailing sentiment in Bitcoin world may be too US-centric, egocentric, and anarchist for  the Japanese taste and culture. Different narratives are needed to get the Japanese interested in discovering Bitcoin as a technology and deciding on its ideological implications. Perhaps a good start is DublinBrian's forex pitch above.

most Bitcoiners here just don't realize how early we are in this whole thing.  when whole countries like Japan haven't even come online to any significant degree you begin to realize just how far we have to go.

Very true. It's because we're immersed in Bitcoin daily that it's easy to forget the reality that Bitcoin is known by approximately .015% of the world's population (yes, I invented that stat).

Or their culture may start to evolve at a more rapid rate due the radiation and the realization that their government is directly responsible for their calamity due to actions (or lack thereof) before, during, and after the Fukushima meltdowns.

Japanese translators welcome !
MultiBit translation site. (http://translate.multibit.org/)


Edit: It would be useful to have at least one Japanese language wallet by the time MemoryDealers presents in Akihabara.
Please retweet to your Japanese native speaker friends: https://twitter.com/MultiBitOrg/status/235665478071246848 (https://twitter.com/MultiBitOrg/status/235665478071246848)

here is some services that I know for translation
https://www.transifex.com/ (https://www.transifex.com/)
http://crowdin.net/ (http://crowdin.net/)
http://www.guru.com/emp/search.aspx?#&&page=1&sort=Earnings&cid=500&keyword=Localization (http://www.guru.com/emp/search.aspx?#&&page=1&sort=Earnings&cid=500&keyword=Localization)

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

This needs some work.

...or they may take an honest look into facts and realize that private corporations were directly responsible for deceiving them, cooking books, shielding dosimeters, corrupting government workers, and putting everyone at risk. Their culture may then start to evolve towards something different from what you were imagining. Time will tell, but in the meantime we should try and expose them to Bitcoin as a technology, letting them decide on ideal use cases, politics, and ideology.

I certainly did not mean to downplay the culpability of the corporations.  But corporations are being what they are supposed to be in distributing risk and damage and consolidating the profits into the hands of their owners.  It's up to the government to regulate this (completely expected) behavior.  If the members of the government are bought off (and I believe that this is more common than not in both the US, Japan, pretty much everywhere else) then it's up to the people to change that.  Or die the deaths they/we have earned...or have their children bear the mutations in the case of Japan.

The Japanese mentality is not to dive in until others have. Not entirely unexpected, but give it time. I think another sticking point is that Japan simply has no exposure to Bitcoin, seriously, I bet you they have almost no idea that Bitcoin exists. Even with Mt. Gox being established in japan it is well known that the guys running it have english as their primary language.

Translation of sites into japanese will probably help a great deal. I am not really surprised that Japan is late to the table, they usually deal with cash in many, many situations anyway. Digital cash, is much, much less common there.

french

not that it matters much which non-japanese language is primary.

They were using QR codes long before "us" so I expect once the info is available they'll be quick to grok it.

Lol - was just about to say the same thing about QR codes, that and Suica / ICOCA cards and other forms of personal electronic payment have been around since 2001/2002. Japan will be a hard market to break into, especially as I'm not aware of any current electronic methods of withdrawing to Yen. (Every time I've been to Japan since learning about bitcoin, I've always wished I could do away with currency conversion or at the very least convert via bitcoin.)

> 30k volume last 30 days  :)

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxJPY.html (http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxJPY.html)


China has almost 40k volume last 30 days  :D

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btcnCNY.html (http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/btcnCNY.html)

Just wait until a few more days,  you are going to see  A LOT more Japanese getting on board.

This is awesome :)

Can't wait! :-)

Ente

Thumbs up   ;D

What exactly is going to happen in the next few days that will make more Japanese people get on board?

The fact that you can now buy Geiger counters with Bitcoin?

...too soon?  ;D

Ah I heard about the project - yay for Bitcoin as a payment system!

The Japanese volume is indeed a bit odd. The Chinese one can be perfectly explained with the high volatility due to the bubble burst.

I think the Chinese volume increase last year looks pretty healthy.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/btcnCNY#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/btcnCNY#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv)

It's even healthier if you use a currency chart

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/btcnCNY#igWeeklyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzcv

By the way, why is there no Japanese subsection? I remember wanting to post there and not finding it. I'd do translation but it's f**** boring and a lot of work (Japanese style is extremely different to most languages) I'd rather just discuss in Japanese.

There are Bitcoin seminars like this one happening all over Japan.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2qatvea.jpg

http://i50.tinypic.com/nmf3mr.jpg

You will see more and more people in Japan get involved with Bitcoin over the next few weeks.

@memorydealers

how did you find out about that?

I'm guessing he organized it since his name is on the document he posted.

Top man, Roger... that's great. Used to live in Japan myself and I write and speak Japanese, just in case you need a hand.

The conferences are actually organized by a different networking group.
I'm helping explain what Bitcoins are and how they work to everyone.
I will be giving Bitcoin seminars almost every work day for the next few weeks all across Japan.
I think this is the start of great things for Bitcoin in Japan.

If your Japanese is good enough,  please help translate various Bitcoin things into Japanese.

Here is a good place to start:
translate.multibit.org (http://translate.multibit.org)

I was afraid you'd ask me that  :P well I hate translating, but I will contribute some when I actually try that software (context is important). Note that sentence-by-sentence translation will lead to a weirdly worded Japanese version.

For the time being I've created an account.

https://p.twimg.com/A1DaAhICMAELyho.jpg

Nice work Roger! I wonder what are their reactions once you tell them the name and country of Bitcoin's inventor.

And curious about the JPY volume.

Just WOW! How did you get that started? I'm in Chile and people politely ask about bitcoin when I mention it but then I try to slow down as I barely see real interest and don't want to annoy people with my toy. I would love to do the same here but wouldn't know how to approach it.

Just go to a major intersection dressed up in a Bitcoin suit and hand out flyers. Works every time.  8)

Just say it's a new global international currency that will take over the world!
That should get you some eye-brows. Then explain the details :)

Roger, you are an inspiration to us all.
 

How will this affect the folks in other countries? 
 
Overall, should we expect the world-wide value of bitcoins to increase when the Japanese get involved due to the increased demand over there?

No, we should expect the world-wide value to increase because of the decreased supply over here.

Where are you holding these Bitcoin seminars, Roger?  Who is the audience? They look awesome!

When Roger came to visit CoinLab, I had the opportunity to see his evangelism in action.  He has an incredible skill for explaining the concept and getting people excited about it.  My own Bitcoin evangelism skills improved just from watching him go. If Japanese interest in Bitcoin is on the rise, my bets are on him being the one to thank for it  ;D

Roger thank you for every single thing you do for this community.
You are a blessing that is many times undeserved in this place..

Keep fighting the good fight sir!

We are actually having the meetings all over Japan,  from Okinawa to Sapporo, and everywhere in between.
The people attending the meetings are investors interested in new businesses and technologies.
They are all excited about Bitcoin as soon as they hear about it and understand the basics.
I think we will start seeing a lot of Japanese investing money into Bitcoins and starting to use Bitcoin in their existing businesses.
They are particularly excited about the Bitinstant Bitcoin based credit card.
Last night there was talk about being able to sell tens of thousands of them in Japan easily.

I will update this thread as things progress.

+1, seconded!  Any chance you'd make the lecture materials generic and release a "Birtcoin Evangelism Kit" to be leveraged by enthusiasts worldwide?

I'm glad to hear about interest growing in Japan.  Keep up the good work!


I did a few translations, but I don't trust my Japanese enough to be sure any of them are correct.  I'm afraid it's the result of learning Japanese almost exclusively from anime and Japanese music...  ;D

I thought the Japanese *invented* Bitcoin.  ;D

These photos are great - so many women and older people.
Completely different to the usual bitcoin crowd.

The advantage to this is that the transfer doesn't have to go through a US-based bank, when sending in JPY. When sending USD, all transfers must cross a US bank (who generally charge a large fee - $30 in my case)

This is a great idea.
I will put something on www.coindl.com (http://www.coindl.com) shortly.

I wanted to point to this post discussing Roger Ver; he has now claimed on Twitter that he is the direct source of the recent volume in mtgoxJPY and that the Japanese have over the past months bought 250K USD in Bitcoins (how he gets to that number is unclear).
http://bitinvest.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/roger-ver-japenese-bought-250k-usd-in-bitcoin/

I don't have time to measure and I have no idea how he can be sure the increase is only due to his advertisement but if you take MtGox-USD (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180zigWeeklyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzcv) as an approximation of the global trend and compare it to the respective MtGox-JPY (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxJPY#rg180zigWeeklyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzcv) you could come to the conclusion that something happened recently in Japan looking at the volume bars. The USD median at 2 million spiking at four times that value last week. The JPY median at 0.5k spiking at 12, 28 and 16 times that value last 3 weeks.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=180&i=Weekly&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=1&ps=0&l=0&p=0&

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxJPY&SubmitButton=Draw&r=180&i=Weekly&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=1&ps=0&l=0&p=0&

I just spent my evening presenting Bitcoin to about 50 more Japanese business people in Sapporo. (A city in the northern most island)
I also installed the Blockchain and Bitcoinspinner apps on all their smart phones and gave each of them their first 0.05 bitcoin.
I'm sure the majority of them will be buying their own bitcoin soon.
I am also sure that because of the efforts I am involved with in Japan, the Japanese have bought more than 25,000,000 JPY (~$317,000 USD) worth of bitcoins in the last few weeks and that it is just the beginning.
Unfortunately I currently can't provide the exact details as to how I know the exact amount, but I am sure this is just a small fraction of what is to come.

Doing a quick sum up of the excess turnover in the last 3 weeks, I also see 25 million JPY traded extra. I do not know which fraction of them was traded more than once but I would say 25M is not a save number to take credit for based on these charts. Yet there are other ways of buying bitcoins so I would just trust you with this.

For a limited amount of time and businesspeople, 300,000 USD is a sizable amount to invest. Might speculation be one of their interests?

Thanks for your efforts Roger  :)

Roger, talk to us about how you advertised the meetings and how you attracted so many interested investors.

Their interest is three fold.
1. Speculation
2. The ease of sending value anywhere in the world instantly with no counter party risk is apparent to them.
3. They all seem to think that the Bitinstant Bitcoin Mastercard is the coolest thing in the universe and all want it ASAP.

At the meeting tonight,  there were typical Bitcoin techie types in their 20's, lots of middle aged business people, and even one woman who was at least in her 60s and possibly in her 70s.
It was amazing to see such a wide variety of people interested in Bitcoin.

Unfortunately one young mother in attendance managed to lose her first 0.01BTC forever.
I had everyone, including her, install the Blockchain iphone app.
She never registered her email address (I didn't have time to walk her through it) and after receiving her 0.01 BTC she logged out, without ever having saved her wallet identifier in any way.

I like this idea and it could be duplicated on every corner of the Earth. Do you need any special licensing to conduct this type of seminar?

I'm not the organizer,  and I don't know the details of how the meetings are advertised.

There are several Japanese guys that organize investment/business clubs or organizations of some sort.
They are organizing everything and just have me helping explain Bitcoin.
I think their primary interest is making money through investing,  and after hearing about Bitcoin,  they see the potential.
I'm careful to explain that in several years, one bitcoin will likely be worth a lot of money or nothing at all,  and almost certainly not what they are worth today.
I think we may see some Japanese businesses starting to use Bitcoin by 2013.

Did that get explained to the audience as well? It wasn't just all hype is it?

you really should find out how they're advertising it.  the middle agers, investors, and the Ms. Watanabe types are really who need to keep attending these things as they tend to be the one's with the money.  getting large turnouts like you are is key and duplicating this model in other countries will help spread the word.  good work.

the next time you let your conscience get to you, think about what your competition is doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGEppgLna8U&feature=youtu.be

It will be nice to see BitInstant in Japan the third largest national economy.

Oh no! You didn't fall for the 'all or nothing' fallacy, did you? Discussion on that here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99689.0

A lot of money is not all.

True, I guess we could call it "going big or going bust" fallacy.

There has been a flurry of Japanese localisation work for MultiBit recently - no doubt prompted by this thread.
As I type it is 44% done - have a look at the screenshot below:

http://multibit.org/postImages/japanese.png

These translation texts will appear in the next release (v0.4.8 ) which I am just working on the test and QA now. is available at the multibit.org (http://multibit.org) website.

A big "ありがとう" to everybody who has contributed to the localisation effort.

Roger - I support your efforts, but I don't think you're responsible for as much activity as you claim (though I'm sure you're responsible for some of the activity).

How do I know?  Because I know what I'm responsible for (directly + indirectly) and you've claimed some of it.  Moreover, I'm sure this is more than a 2-player market.

The price is climbing nicely now too, maybe these Japanese early adopters are going to make a lot of money...

-MarkM-

If it was what was done 2 days ago, that was me.  I've not found the time since, but I will.

I've done some but I'd need to be used to the client to do more, as I don't understand the context well enough to be sure.

I will give it some more time later in the week if I have the time.

Here is %100 proof of how I know what the seminars are responsible for:

http://i47.tinypic.com/11b6m12.png

The above image shows deposit records from people who heard about Bitcoin through the seminars.
Each user must deposit a minimum of 100000 yen.  (They often deposit more than that)
So far there have been 237 deposits through the seminars starting August 9th,
The absolute minimum amount this could be is 23,700,000 yen  (~$301,000 USD)  but in reality it is a bit more than this because people often deposit more than 100,000 yen at a time.

This is just the beginning......

is that an acct from mtgox and who's is it?

Sorry, but the exact details are still a bit private,  but I hope everyone can now believe me when I say I know to the last yen exactly what the seminars are responsible for.

actually i believed you and thought from the beginning this would be your metric of success.  i know you have a close relationship with Mark and this new push in Japan is long overdue and i'm sure Mark will help monitor its success.  good job again.

Did you get my message?

So most Japanese people are not opening mt.gox accounts for themselves but going through you (and other people)?
Wouldn't it make sense for mtgox to be available in more than one language?

I replied to your very interesting PM several hours ago.
I look forward to working with you in regards to it.
Feel free to email me directly at any time roger at memorydealers.com (http://memorydealers.com)

"following"

Hmm maybe I misunderstand, but you say the minimum is 100k but everything in your screenshot is less than that?  They're only just over 100 USD each.  Something is very wrong with the arithmetic.  Perhaps divide by ten?

And the date is yesterday, not the high volume days cited, and only shows transfers not purchases?  Sorry but I don't see that this supports your claims at all.

I can't currently go into all the details,  but my math and screen shots are correct.
The screenshot only shows 10% of each deposit.  $100 x 10 = $1000 (~100000 yen) minimum deposit.

If you don't want to believe me that is fine, but I think my past bitcoin reputation speaks for itself.

Feel free to google (Roger Ver Bitcoin) and you will find plenty of background.

Then there's only one way I can see how what you posted makes any sense.

And in that case my reactions are

a) sheesh,  no wonder you're being cagey, and
b) posting it at all wasn't a smart move and an error of judgement

I hope I'm wrong.

Roger Ver is Satoshi so you can believe him ;)