All eyes on Japan in 2018

[danielwwt]

Very interesting post!

[danielwwt]

Besides Japan, let's see what's gonna happen to the world.

I would imagine the more unstable the world is, more people will seek to safe heaven for their money. This could be an opportunity for bitcoin.

I would imagine if the US declares war to North Korea, bitcoin will skyrocket.

[JohnHero]

***************************************************************************************************************
This paper presents the situation of the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2017 and the challenges that the crypto community still faces. Thanks to its crypto friendly legal framework, Japan should be the country to watch in 2018. The currently high transaction fees of Bitcoin offers an opportunity for Japanese crypto assets to become the preferred payment method on the island and maybe in the world.
***************************************************************************************************************

Looking back, 2017 was a fantastic year for the crypto world. Investors enjoyed 20 fold returns on Bitcoin (BTC), 100 for Ether (ETH), 60 for Litecoin (LTC) and so on. It was hard to lose money in dollar terms.

This exceptional performance is the consequence of years of hard work from developers, exchanges, lobbyists, authors, etc. to make Bitcoin and the likes more known and accessible to the world.
The crypto market is becoming mainstream: institutional and retail investors are now together in this new asset class. The more, the merrier one could say.

Indeed, the influx of new joiners came at a benefit: the skyrocketing rise in value of crypto assets.

But it came at a cost too: Congested blockchains, rising transaction costs, crashing exchanges, etc.

While cryptocurrencies made a name for themselves this year, a lot must be done so that they leave their nascent state and become mature payment methods.

The time is now to scale.

On December 13, Vitalik Buterin, the Founder of Ethereum, challenged his followers on Twitter:

•   “So total cryptocoin market cap just hit $0.5T today. But have we *earned* it?”
•   “How many unbanked people have we banked?”
•   “How much actual usage of micropayment channels is there actually in reality?”

Without a real use case in the daily life of people, 99% of cryptocurrencies and tokens will be remembered as a funny investment that turned out to be a mirage.

Bitcoin is here to stay.

It has the first mover advantage, the biggest network, fair incentives and its scarcity makes it the true digital gold. It’s the benchmark of all crypto assets. For these reasons, Bitcoin will survive and at least act as a store of value.

However, Bitcoin was also designed to be a medium of exchange but it is now too slow and too expensive to use. Being the first mover also has its flaws. Bitcoin blocks are 1 Megabyte big and occur every 10 minutes. That is not enough to cope with the thousands of new transactions happening every minute. Bitcoin miners include the transactions with the highest fees attached in the blocks.
This is how Bitcoin is no longer viable as a medium of exchange for small transactions.

It may be temporary though.

The introduction of the Lightning Networks (LN) solution to the Bitcoin network will make Bitcoin great again.
But when will that happen?
Will the community tear itself apart as it did when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) solution was launched this summer? Nobody knows. There may well be another 12 to 18 months of developments and hiccups along the way.

So what will happen in the meantime?

Now that millions of people have become aware of cryptocurrencies and that the Bitcoin blockchain is in limbo, there is an immense opportunity for an altcoin to become the preferred coin for transactions.

Let’s remember that the value of a coin mostly depends on the size of its network. The more people use it, the higher its value.
Also, the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin vs credit cards is still low worldwide. A successful altcoin could in no time take over Bitcoin as the preferred coin by merchants.

Therefore, this is no surprise that the Bitcoin cash (BCH) supporters are so vocal in the media. BCH offers lower transaction costs thanks to its 8 Megabytes block size. It could thus fill the gap.
Litecoin (LTC) is another contender. It’s a clone of Bitcoin with larger and more frequent blocks. It has Segwit too.

In the end, the users will decide which coin they endorse.

But the legal framework plays an important role here.
In most countries, the legal status of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is still unclear. Why would merchants accept cryptocurrencies that are uneasy to apprehend and that the government can ban overnight?

Japan gave cryptocurrencies legal tender status in April. This is a massive step for a rapid adoption by Japanese people and merchants.
Which coins are they likely to endorse for payments?

BCH? LTC? Probably not. These coins are known in Japan but probably lack the support of the local crypto communities.

And Japan has its own altcoins: NEM and MONA. They are very different in design.

NEM is similar to Ether as it enables the creation of NEM powered blockchains and smart contracts. There are 9 billion tokens that were premined. Transactions are validated by nodes, based on a Proof of Importance method.

MONA is a fork of LTC with more frequent blocks. It is popular with gamers and is even accepted by IT stores. Coins are mined by the traditional Proof of Work method.

Both coins enjoy strong local support and can be purchased directly against Fiat on the Japanese exchanges.

This is why Japanese altcoins shall be monitored closely in 2018.

Their adoption by local merchants shall be facilitated thanks to the clear legal framework for cryptocurrencies in Japan and the work of their communities.

Should they become widely adopted in Japan, the network effect could make them very popular in other parts of the world.

Calangaman
Published on Bitcointalk on 27 Dec 2017

Overall the cryptocurrencies will succeed, eventhough there is a lot of fud about ICOs beeing scam and so on. People prefer ICO as ICO are a better way to get huge returns, and that way of thinking helps the ICOs do their work.
Bitcoin is here to stay, but with these high fees, for how long it will stay king? I would fear for BTC instead of fearing for the alts.

[hadisaw]

While NEM & MONA are interesting cryptocurrency, i wouldn't invest my money on any cryptocurrency which only focus on specific country.
But, i'm sure once majority users adopt SegWit and use LN, i think Japan crypto community will consider accept BTC beside NEM & MONA.

NEM and MONA are the coins I hold now and yes both coins have great potential in the future.

[1Referee]

Exactly, BTC fees are the issue for Bitcoin broader acceptance at this point.
But transactions fees are very low with NEM and MONA so these coins may be more easily accepted by Japanese merchants throughout 2018.

Of course do altcoins offer cheaper transaction fees, because their networks don't experience any sort of actual usage. None of the altcoins in this market comes even close to how robust and secure Bitcoin's network is, and that premium will cost you, it's that simple. I must however admit that at this point the fees aren't reasonable anymore, but that's something Lightning Network will take care of, so there is no need for merchants to accept whatever altcoin. This ecosystem need to start with seriously utilizing Segwit, which is something that will lower the fees a notch or two, and that's the main point everyone aims at, right? In other words, blame all the services still not having upgraded their operations.

[denzkilim]

***************************************************************************************************************
This paper presents the situation of the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2017 and the challenges that the crypto community still faces. Thanks to its crypto friendly legal framework, Japan should be the country to watch in 2018. The currently high transaction fees of Bitcoin offers an opportunity for Japanese crypto assets to become the preferred payment method on the island and maybe in the world.
***************************************************************************************************************

Looking back, 2017 was a fantastic year for the crypto world. Investors enjoyed 20 fold returns on Bitcoin (BTC), 100 for Ether (ETH), 60 for Litecoin (LTC) and so on. It was hard to lose money in dollar terms.

This exceptional performance is the consequence of years of hard work from developers, exchanges, lobbyists, authors, etc. to make Bitcoin and the likes more known and accessible to the world.
The crypto market is becoming mainstream: institutional and retail investors are now together in this new asset class. The more, the merrier one could say.

Indeed, the influx of new joiners came at a benefit: the skyrocketing rise in value of crypto assets.

But it came at a cost too: Congested blockchains, rising transaction costs, crashing exchanges, etc.

While cryptocurrencies made a name for themselves this year, a lot must be done so that they leave their nascent state and become mature payment methods.

The time is now to scale.

On December 13, Vitalik Buterin, the Founder of Ethereum, challenged his followers on Twitter:

•   “So total cryptocoin market cap just hit $0.5T today. But have we *earned* it?”
•   “How many unbanked people have we banked?”
•   “How much actual usage of micropayment channels is there actually in reality?”

Without a real use case in the daily life of people, 99% of cryptocurrencies and tokens will be remembered as a funny investment that turned out to be a mirage.

Bitcoin is here to stay.

It has the first mover advantage, the biggest network, fair incentives and its scarcity makes it the true digital gold. It’s the benchmark of all crypto assets. For these reasons, Bitcoin will survive and at least act as a store of value.

However, Bitcoin was also designed to be a medium of exchange but it is now too slow and too expensive to use. Being the first mover also has its flaws. Bitcoin blocks are 1 Megabyte big and occur every 10 minutes. That is not enough to cope with the thousands of new transactions happening every minute. Bitcoin miners include the transactions with the highest fees attached in the blocks.
This is how Bitcoin is no longer viable as a medium of exchange for small transactions.

It may be temporary though.

The introduction of the Lightning Networks (LN) solution to the Bitcoin network will make Bitcoin great again.
But when will that happen?
Will the community tear itself apart as it did when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) solution was launched this summer? Nobody knows. There may well be another 12 to 18 months of developments and hiccups along the way.

So what will happen in the meantime?

Now that millions of people have become aware of cryptocurrencies and that the Bitcoin blockchain is in limbo, there is an immense opportunity for an altcoin to become the preferred coin for transactions.

Let’s remember that the value of a coin mostly depends on the size of its network. The more people use it, the higher its value.
Also, the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin vs credit cards is still low worldwide. A successful altcoin could in no time take over Bitcoin as the preferred coin by merchants.

Therefore, this is no surprise that the Bitcoin cash (BCH) supporters are so vocal in the media. BCH offers lower transaction costs thanks to its 8 Megabytes block size. It could thus fill the gap.
Litecoin (LTC) is another contender. It’s a clone of Bitcoin with larger and more frequent blocks. It has Segwit too.

In the end, the users will decide which coin they endorse.

But the legal framework plays an important role here.
In most countries, the legal status of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is still unclear. Why would merchants accept cryptocurrencies that are uneasy to apprehend and that the government can ban overnight?

Japan gave cryptocurrencies legal tender status in April. This is a massive step for a rapid adoption by Japanese people and merchants.
Which coins are they likely to endorse for payments?

BCH? LTC? Probably not. These coins are known in Japan but probably lack the support of the local crypto communities.

And Japan has its own altcoins: NEM and MONA. They are very different in design.

NEM is similar to Ether as it enables the creation of NEM powered blockchains and smart contracts. There are 9 billion tokens that were premined. Transactions are validated by nodes, based on a Proof of Importance method.

MONA is a fork of LTC with more frequent blocks. It is popular with gamers and is even accepted by IT stores. Coins are mined by the traditional Proof of Work method.

Both coins enjoy strong local support and can be purchased directly against Fiat on the Japanese exchanges.

This is why Japanese altcoins shall be monitored closely in 2018.

Their adoption by local merchants shall be facilitated thanks to the clear legal framework for cryptocurrencies in Japan and the work of their communities.

Should they become widely adopted in Japan, the network effect could make them very popular in other parts of the world.

Calangaman
Published on Bitcointalk on 27 Dec 2017

Overall the cryptocurrencies will succeed, eventhough there is a lot of fud about ICOs beeing scam and so on. People prefer ICO as ICO are a better way to get huge returns, and that way of thinking helps the ICOs do their work.
Bitcoin is here to stay, but with these high fees, for how long it will stay king? I would fear for BTC instead of fearing for the alts.

Bitcoins high fees are a bit pain in the ass specially for the "low amount" holders of this crypto its a burden when your fee is higher than what you actually get. I think the big game changer this 2018 will be those alt coins with extremely low fees and no fees at all.

I will be studying those japanese alt coins that you have mentioned. 

[Calangaman]

Of course do altcoins offer cheaper transaction fees, because their networks don't experience any sort of actual usage. None of the altcoins in this market comes even close to how robust and secure Bitcoin's network is, and that premium will cost you, it's that simple. I must however admit that at this point the fees aren't reasonable anymore, but that's something Lightning Network will take care of, so there is no need for merchants to accept whatever altcoin. This ecosystem need to start with seriously utilizing Segwit, which is something that will lower the fees a notch or two, and that's the main point everyone aims at, right? In other words, blame all the services still not having upgraded their operations.

Agreed. BTC fee problem will be solved with LN.

Meanwhile, MONA is structured in a way that can handle a much larger quantity of transactions at a cheap cost.
It was the first coin to implement Segwit and devs are also working on LN.
So it is no surprise to me that Japanese merchants now accept it.

[Kotone]

***************************************************************************************************************
This paper presents the situation of the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2017 and the challenges that the crypto community still faces. Thanks to its crypto friendly legal framework, Japan should be the country to watch in 2018. The currently high transaction fees of Bitcoin offers an opportunity for Japanese crypto assets to become the preferred payment method on the island and maybe in the world.
***************************************************************************************************************

Looking back, 2017 was a fantastic year for the crypto world. Investors enjoyed 20 fold returns on Bitcoin (BTC), 100 for Ether (ETH), 60 for Litecoin (LTC) and so on. It was hard to lose money in dollar terms.

This exceptional performance is the consequence of years of hard work from developers, exchanges, lobbyists, authors, etc. to make Bitcoin and the likes more known and accessible to the world.
The crypto market is becoming mainstream: institutional and retail investors are now together in this new asset class. The more, the merrier one could say.

Indeed, the influx of new joiners came at a benefit: the skyrocketing rise in value of crypto assets.

But it came at a cost too: Congested blockchains, rising transaction costs, crashing exchanges, etc.

While cryptocurrencies made a name for themselves this year, a lot must be done so that they leave their nascent state and become mature payment methods.

The time is now to scale.

On December 13, Vitalik Buterin, the Founder of Ethereum, challenged his followers on Twitter:

•   “So total cryptocoin market cap just hit $0.5T today. But have we *earned* it?”
•   “How many unbanked people have we banked?”
•   “How much actual usage of micropayment channels is there actually in reality?”

Without a real use case in the daily life of people, 99% of cryptocurrencies and tokens will be remembered as a funny investment that turned out to be a mirage.

Bitcoin is here to stay.

It has the first mover advantage, the biggest network, fair incentives and its scarcity makes it the true digital gold. It’s the benchmark of all crypto assets. For these reasons, Bitcoin will survive and at least act as a store of value.

However, Bitcoin was also designed to be a medium of exchange but it is now too slow and too expensive to use. Being the first mover also has its flaws. Bitcoin blocks are 1 Megabyte big and occur every 10 minutes. That is not enough to cope with the thousands of new transactions happening every minute. Bitcoin miners include the transactions with the highest fees attached in the blocks.
This is how Bitcoin is no longer viable as a medium of exchange for small transactions.

It may be temporary though.

The introduction of the Lightning Networks (LN) solution to the Bitcoin network will make Bitcoin great again.
But when will that happen?
Will the community tear itself apart as it did when the Segregated Witness (Segwit) solution was launched this summer? Nobody knows. There may well be another 12 to 18 months of developments and hiccups along the way.

So what will happen in the meantime?

Now that millions of people have become aware of cryptocurrencies and that the Bitcoin blockchain is in limbo, there is an immense opportunity for an altcoin to become the preferred coin for transactions.

Let’s remember that the value of a coin mostly depends on the size of its network. The more people use it, the higher its value.
Also, the number of merchants accepting Bitcoin vs credit cards is still low worldwide. A successful altcoin could in no time take over Bitcoin as the preferred coin by merchants.

Therefore, this is no surprise that the Bitcoin cash (BCH) supporters are so vocal in the media. BCH offers lower transaction costs thanks to its 8 Megabytes block size. It could thus fill the gap.
Litecoin (LTC) is another contender. It’s a clone of Bitcoin with larger and more frequent blocks. It has Segwit too.

In the end, the users will decide which coin they endorse.

But the legal framework plays an important role here.
In most countries, the legal status of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is still unclear. Why would merchants accept cryptocurrencies that are uneasy to apprehend and that the government can ban overnight?

Japan gave cryptocurrencies legal tender status in April. This is a massive step for a rapid adoption by Japanese people and merchants.
Which coins are they likely to endorse for payments?

BCH? LTC? Probably not. These coins are known in Japan but probably lack the support of the local crypto communities.

And Japan has its own altcoins: NEM and MONA. They are very different in design.

NEM is similar to Ether as it enables the creation of NEM powered blockchains and smart contracts. There are 9 billion tokens that were premined. Transactions are validated by nodes, based on a Proof of Importance method.

MONA is a fork of LTC with more frequent blocks. It is popular with gamers and is even accepted by IT stores. Coins are mined by the traditional Proof of Work method.

Both coins enjoy strong local support and can be purchased directly against Fiat on the Japanese exchanges.

This is why Japanese altcoins shall be monitored closely in 2018.

Their adoption by local merchants shall be facilitated thanks to the clear legal framework for cryptocurrencies in Japan and the work of their communities.

Should they become widely adopted in Japan, the network effect could make them very popular in other parts of the world.

Calangaman
Published on Bitcointalk on 27 Dec 2017

Japan can be a central place in where bitcoincand cryptocurrency’s future can be determined because the whole world values Japan as a country where advancements has really made them prosper and if they can integrate bitcoin then it would be a big boon.

[heringasem]

It was true, they want to ban everything that is related at some point with bitcoin and everything that concerns about it.
It will be a bad year for the Japanese holders, of course.

[MostafaGamal]

we have to know news about japan and what will happen , also what will happen in other countries , the bitcoin get much famous day after day , so we will see more countries accepted it and more ban it.

[1bitcoinsnet]

Wow bct is now a 'publishing' house that's funny.

I think 'posted' would have been more accurate.

Crypto has entered mostly business use, only digital coin I've seen in wide use is in SFL a centralized instant digital coin used only by businesses in a private barter network.

So if you are a member you get to take the coin and spend it with other business members.

The public is closed out.

B2B barter is a huge thing and that coin took over SFL.

I can't find one merchant to take a crypto coin in SFL but I can spend that barter coin all day.

So a mass merchant adoption coin is the key and with amex joining ripple that could easily become the first mass merchant coin.

[Yzhel]

we have to know news about japan and what will happen , also what will happen in other countries , the bitcoin get much famous day after day , so we will see more countries accepted it and more ban it.

Bitcoin was really becoming famous in each country, some sees this as an opportunity for their people and some country had pride enough and don't allow this kind of alternative money or this cryptocurrency to boom in their place since they cannot control it , they were so greed and selfish enough for not allowing this.

[Eclipse2021]

A girl told me ince , that in 2018 I must keep on eye on the asian market cause things will go nuts there in the good way. Also I have read that north koreea and Japan are buying more and more bitcoin and cryptos. Is this true ? Can be true ?

[PPleaseman]

Hello. Thanks for this thread. I know NEM and will look up MONAcoin. I hope they dont ban it or overregulate it

Cheers

[pugman]

Not a lot is heard about MONA but a lot of people do know NEM, because it belongs to the group of coins that gets pumped every now and then. Japan can contribute a lot to the crypto economy but will MONA and XEM be a part of it? Maybe, maybe not. Only Japan's course of action won't do much change, the crypto economy should accept it, which most probably they will but still am dubious about the statement of yours where an altcoin is coming to the level of bitcoin for faster and cheaper transactions.

[Gregsman]

I hope that crypto will go mainstream or should I say ''legal''.
Maybe in 2018...I hope so, but this is going to be a battle.

[batman12345]

wait. how do you know this info? source?

[Manyak]

Wow what a great words . Thank you for your words  )

[newb-dev]

Japan knows how to take advantage of every new technology and later on they benefit from it. If all the countries looked on the long term, they would win a lot!

[harizen]

Exactly, BTC fees are the issue for Bitcoin broader acceptance at this point.
But transactions fees are very low with NEM and MONA so these coins may be more easily accepted by Japanese merchants throughout 2018.

NEM transaction fees is low but in order to obtain NEM, we need to face the exchange withdrawal fees (deposit BTC > trade NEM > Withdraw). If Im not mistaken, Poloniex, Bittrex have 15-20 NEM fees as withdrawal fees so it's like paying $13-$17 at the current exchange rate. Since there is no direct purchase of NEM available at the moment without dealing on an exchange (correct me if Im mistaken here), people will have to used bitcoin first then deposit it to exchanges.

Well that is just based on the current status. Who knows in the future, there will be a standalone NEM exchanges where deposit and withdrawals are less cost.