Great question and something I sometimes wonder myself. There are different factors to keeping Bitcoin from getting popular in Japan but the important ones in my opinion are:
  1. The Mt.Gox hack (2014) and the coincheck hack (2018) damaged its reputation and many people still have an image of Bitcoin being dangerous or insecure
  2. The tax rate for crypto is very high in Japan (max 55%)and it's discouraging general investors (stocks, FX, real estate etc) from buying Bitcoin
  3. Culturally, Japan is very conservative and we have a lot of trust in the government and banks in general. Because of that, many people are not fond of Bitcoin's anti-government or bank nature and they claim Bitcoin has no value.
this territory is moderated
However, due to really weak JPY over the past few years, the narratives around Bitcoin are changing now and I feel more and more people are finally starting to see issues with fiat currencies and need for saving in other assets than yen.
So there are some positive signs in terms of Bticoin adoption now. (though the economy has been in a really bad shape on the other hand)
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