[2017-12-31] Bitcoin Will Give Japan`s Economy a Substantial Boost

[Terraformer]

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies had a year of exceptional growth in 2017.  The cryptocurrency market cap managed to surpass the valuation of $638 billion and many experts believe that it will further increase.

THE CRYPTOCURRENCY JOB MARKET

2017 was one of the most exciting and interesting years for the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin and Ethereum had a spectacular bull run and managed to make huge gains for investors and traders. We also had a huge number of Initial Coin Offerings and a record-breaking amount of funding. ICOs managed to raise over $3.7 billion in funding for blockchain and cryptocurrency-related projects. Most of these startups were successfully able to raise their funding goals and are now on a hiring spree.

An article by Fortune mentions that the number of Bitcoin and blockchain-related job listings grew by over 5,753%. Experts believe that this is just the start and that the number of Bitcoin jobs will rise further in the upcoming years. Some governments have decided to implement regulations and laws in order to attract Bitcoin companies to operate in their countries. The most recent example is Belarus, which implemented new laws to officially legalize cryptocurrencies and give them a tax-exempt status for the next five years in the hopes of attracting companies to start operations in the country.

HOW JAPAN WILL BENEFIT FROM BITCOIN

Japan has become one of the most popular countries for Bitcoin and blockchain-related companies. One of the major reasons for this situation is the fact that the Japanese government has proper regulations and laws that favor cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, the Japanese government officially recognized Bitcoin as a legal payment method. This caused a major price increase, as many Japanese investors decided to invest in the decentralized cryptocurrency.

Analysts at Nomura believe that the price rise of Bitcoin has given many investors a very high return on investment, which might lead to a boost for the economy of Japan. The lead of the analyst team, Yoshiyuki Suimon, stated the following:

"Rises in asset values often result in a rise in consumer spending, too, known as the wealth effect. We estimate the wealth effect from unrealized gains on bitcoin trading by Japanese investors since the start of fiscal year 2017, and estimate a potential boost to consumer spending of 23.2-96.0 billion yen."

He also added:

"Moreover, the fact that the rise in bitcoin prices was concentrated in 2017 fourth quarter could result in the wealth effect materialising in 2018 first quarter, and if that is the case, we estimate a potential boost to real GDP growth on an annualised quarter over quarter basis of up to about 0.3 percentage points"

The effects of Bitcoin are multiple on the economy of Japan. Not only are further jobs being created, but the resulting wealth effect from the cryptocurrency’s rise in value is spurring real and measurable economic growth. As more cryptocurrency exchanges and operations move to Japan, it’s likely that this financial trend will continue unabated.

http://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-will-give-japans-economy-substantial-boost/

[uslfd]

Good to know i hope Japan continues to take the lead in supporting bitcoin. With Jpn's support, there will be a very small chance that bitcoin would become irrelevant in the future.

[CryptoBry]

Good to know i hope Japan continues to take the lead in supporting bitcoin. With Jpn's support, there will be a very small chance that bitcoin would become irrelevant in the future.

Japan is now the official leader in the Bitcoin market and we should be glad that the Japanese people really embrace Bitcoin and its government is not manned by people who are always looking for ways to control the people. The Japanese government has not, is not and will not be afraid of what Bitcoin can be bringing into the country because they are seeing this as a great opportunity to widen its economy and create more new category of jobs. We have to remember that Bitcoin is international and so funds from other countries are trekking to Japan all because they are providing the most acceptable (albeit under a regulated atmosphere too) market for cryptocurrency. Japan has the vision for Bitcoin while China became myopic in its approach. Thank you, Japan for being here for Bitcoin.

[Kakmakr]

If most of these Japanese merchants used Payment processors and they converted BTC to Fiat, then they would not have seen the real advantage of using Bitcoin as a payment option. The best way to use BTC as a payment option, is to use a payment processor that allow you to configure the amount of BTC that you want to have converted and also the BTC that you want to retain. <pre-configure say, converting 80% to fiat and hoarding 20%>

If they hoarded a small percentage of the coins since January and they sold it when the price was 800% higher, then they would have made some pretty good profits for the year. ^smile^