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If you’re among the millions or billions of people following our newsletters, you’re probably already up to speed on Plushie Confidential #1 and #2. If you aren’t, you might want to take a brief sojourn back in time to read Bitty’s genesis story and follow that up with Itty Bitty’s. ChatGPT can probably summarize if reading premium bitcoin content isn’t for you.
But these are preambles. While this post doesn’t have much to do with earlier Plushie Confidential, it does have much to do with Japanese culture and their collective love for all things cute, cuddly, and quintessential.
If you’ve never been to Japan (statistically, you probably haven’t), one of the first things to strike you during your long march from the plane to immigration will be the presence of extremely large Pokémon. Not unfriendly stares from bossy TSA agents, Pokémon—big goddamn Pokémon.
While we can’t speak for every terminal at NRT or HND, the ones I’ve always been into are Pokémon, Pokémon, Pokémon. Pikachu, Charmander, and Bulbasaur—they’re all there. And if you’re fortunate, you’ll see one of the Pokémon branded Boeing 767s sitting on the tarmac. (They’re a lot like this hallway but with fixed wings and jet engines).
Anyway, Tokyo… whatta town.
If you’re among the millions or billions of people following our newsletters, you’re probably already up to speed on Plushie Confidential #1 and #2. If you aren’t, you might want to take a brief sojourn back in time to read Bitty’s genesis story and follow that up with Itty Bitty’s. ChatGPT can probably summarize if reading premium bitcoin content isn’t for you.
But these are preambles. While this post doesn’t have much to do with earlier Plushie Confidential, it does have much to do with Japanese culture and their collective love for all things cute, cuddly, and quintessential.
If you’ve never been to Japan (statistically, you probably haven’t), one of the first things to strike you during your long march from the plane to immigration will be the presence of extremely large Pokémon. Not unfriendly stares from bossy TSA agents, Pokémon—big goddamn Pokémon.
While we can’t speak for every terminal at NRT or HND, the ones I’ve always been into are Pokémon, Pokémon, Pokémon. Pikachu, Charmander, and Bulbasaur—they’re all there. And if you’re fortunate, you’ll see one of the Pokémon branded Boeing 767s sitting on the tarmac. (They’re a lot like this hallway but with fixed wings and jet engines).
Anyway, Tokyo… whatta town.
Our team landed in Tokyo in mid-September for two reasons:
Rally for our semi-annual team offsite, where engineers gab for ten hours a day while the creative team huddles anywhere else.
Attend Bitcoin Tokyo 2024, Tokyo’s first bitcoin only conference.
Going into the conference, we had been asked by several sellers whether they could use our Bitty and Itty Bitty stickers to create merch. Of course, they could, since one of our earliest goals with the Here Comes Bitcoin project was to make our Here Comes Bitcoin assets as open-source as Bitcoin’s code. This meant that anyone could use any of our assets for anything they wanted: tote bags, stickers, pins, wallets, chocolates, fine art, and so on and so on.
And, hoo boy, the good people of Japan delivered. Here’s just a small sample of what people produced using Here Comes Bitcoin.
Rally for our semi-annual team offsite, where engineers gab for ten hours a day while the creative team huddles anywhere else.
Attend Bitcoin Tokyo 2024, Tokyo’s first bitcoin only conference.
Going into the conference, we had been asked by several sellers whether they could use our Bitty and Itty Bitty stickers to create merch. Of course, they could, since one of our earliest goals with the Here Comes Bitcoin project was to make our Here Comes Bitcoin assets as open-source as Bitcoin’s code. This meant that anyone could use any of our assets for anything they wanted: tote bags, stickers, pins, wallets, chocolates, fine art, and so on and so on.
And, hoo boy, the good people of Japan delivered. Here’s just a small sample of what people produced using Here Comes Bitcoin.
When we launched Here Comes Bitcoin, we focused on the United States, where we saw people using our assets to launch their own products. But this was nothing like we saw in Tokyo.
For context, at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, we sold roughly 25% of our Itty Bitty stock. Not bad, but not great either. At Bitcoin Tokyo, we sold over 80%, and for the remainder of the conference, we saw men and women running around and tightly squeezing their Itty Bitties.
As the subtitle of this Plushie Confidential post makes clear, sometimes your audience finds you. We didn’t know that would happen. When we launched Here Comes Bitcoin, it never occurred to us that a single geographical region would dominate every other one. In the US, we got a lot of pushback about why Itty Bitty and Bitty himself seemed so grumpy (grumpy is lovable; ask half the Muppets). In Japan, everyone got what we were going for… immediately.
So what’s next for Bitty and Itty Bitty and the entire Here Comes Bitcoin project in Japan? Hopefully everything.
Our plan is to double, triple, and quadruple down on Japan since that’s where the most interest is. One of our plans is to work with university students to proliferate Itty Bitty to engineering students who might someday want to work on Bitcoin development. Another plan is to get Itty Bitty into retail stores, where it should sell like bright orange hotcakes if the conference was any indicator.
One of the goals of Here Comes Bitcoin was to make Bitcoin funnier, friendlier, and more accessible, not just in the country where we primarily operate, the US, but everywhere. But we have to start somewhere. Japan and Korea are two of the foremost creators of culture in the world today. Their games, art, fashion, and entertainment are nothing short of ubiquitous, being two of the world’s biggest exports. So, while our plan to head on to the United States didn’t work, we had a different plan: to re-enter the States and Europe through Japan.
Oh, and it won’t be Itty Bitty doing this alone. His dad will be helping, too. As popular as Itty Bitty was in Japan, he was more than rivaled by his father figure, who was larger than life and made a big splash throughout Tokyo.
In a country where everything has a mascot (cars, vegetables, towns, train lines, cat food), it stands to reason that Bitcoin, in a country that is rapidly embracing Bitcoin, would have one.
For context, at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, we sold roughly 25% of our Itty Bitty stock. Not bad, but not great either. At Bitcoin Tokyo, we sold over 80%, and for the remainder of the conference, we saw men and women running around and tightly squeezing their Itty Bitties.
As the subtitle of this Plushie Confidential post makes clear, sometimes your audience finds you. We didn’t know that would happen. When we launched Here Comes Bitcoin, it never occurred to us that a single geographical region would dominate every other one. In the US, we got a lot of pushback about why Itty Bitty and Bitty himself seemed so grumpy (grumpy is lovable; ask half the Muppets). In Japan, everyone got what we were going for… immediately.
So what’s next for Bitty and Itty Bitty and the entire Here Comes Bitcoin project in Japan? Hopefully everything.
Our plan is to double, triple, and quadruple down on Japan since that’s where the most interest is. One of our plans is to work with university students to proliferate Itty Bitty to engineering students who might someday want to work on Bitcoin development. Another plan is to get Itty Bitty into retail stores, where it should sell like bright orange hotcakes if the conference was any indicator.
One of the goals of Here Comes Bitcoin was to make Bitcoin funnier, friendlier, and more accessible, not just in the country where we primarily operate, the US, but everywhere. But we have to start somewhere. Japan and Korea are two of the foremost creators of culture in the world today. Their games, art, fashion, and entertainment are nothing short of ubiquitous, being two of the world’s biggest exports. So, while our plan to head on to the United States didn’t work, we had a different plan: to re-enter the States and Europe through Japan.
Oh, and it won’t be Itty Bitty doing this alone. His dad will be helping, too. As popular as Itty Bitty was in Japan, he was more than rivaled by his father figure, who was larger than life and made a big splash throughout Tokyo.
In a country where everything has a mascot (cars, vegetables, towns, train lines, cat food), it stands to reason that Bitcoin, in a country that is rapidly embracing Bitcoin, would have one.
Next time on Plushie Confidential:Logistics, Retail, and Assembling a Team.
Subscribe to our Substack for weekly updates about our team, carefully disguised as entertainment, delivered directly to your inbox.
Subscribe to our Substack for weekly updates about our team, carefully disguised as entertainment, delivered directly to your inbox.