0 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln 7 Oct \ on: Ask me anything about Bitcoin in Japan, Diamond Hands etc-AMA with Koji Higashi AMA
How does the Japanese Bitcoin scene today compare to the old Japanese Bitcoin scene when everything Bitcoin-related seemed to happen in Japan (Roger Ver, Mount Gox, etc)? What kind of places in which cities accept Bitcoin?
I actually think now is better than ever before in Japan.
The thing about the Mt. Gox and/or Roger Ver era was that they were not connected to the local Japanese community.
In addition, Mt. Gox and Roger kind of did damage to Bitcoin reputations for locals in some sense. The Mt.Gox losing a lot of Bitcoins became a national scandal and people laughed at Bitcoin and Mark Karpeles etc. Roger's promotion of Bitcoin is also a bit eccentric and too much for Japanese people, who are more conservative and authoritative, too. He also started to promote Bitcoin Cash later on, which also created more confusion than good.
In that sense, even though there seemed to have lots of stuff happening in Japan in early days from English speakers' point of view, there was actually not much happening in terms of local activities and real adoption before.
Obviously we have more locals involved now compared to before and there are more hard-core local bitcoiners and some companies are deep into Bitcoin, too.
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What kind of places in which cities accept Bitcoin?
-> It's actually improving now and there are more than handful places in Tokyo which accept Lightning payments. My favorite is Cocorotus' kitchen cars across Tokyo. They sell delicious bento for Lightning and I recommend checking them out when you visit Japan.
The thing is merchant adoption in Japan were very limited before, but over the last year or so, we started doing a better job organizing pop-up shops and Bitcoiners selling goods and services for Bitcoin themselves, rather than trying to convince regular merchants, who're not interested or persistent enough.
The Lightning Marche, which was also a huge success during Bitcoin Tokyo 2024 is also a key driver for this movement and we've got some coverage by a national newspaper earlier this year as well.
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Thank you for the thoughtful answers. I've quickly skimmed them for now, but I will read them more carefully during lunchtime.
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