Japan's New Wave of Web3: From Decline to Revival

As the world's third-largest economy, Japan has faced numerous challenges in recent years. The repeated COVID-19 pandemic, escalating debt crisis, and aging population have plunged the domestic economy into difficulties. However, Japan is trying to seek transformation and breakthroughs through the emerging field of Web3.

Looking back at the development of the Japanese economy, we can see that it has undergone multiple phases of fragmentation and reorganization. After World War II, Japan quickly rose with strong administrative intervention and the opportunities brought by the Korean War, creating a rare economic growth miracle. After the bubble economy burst in the 1990s, Japan reshaped its economic structure through industrial transformation and globalization strategies, ultimately establishing its position as the world's third-largest economy.

However, Japan's performance in the internet sector is rather unsatisfactory. Among the 20 largest internet companies in the world in 2021, only Rakuten from Japan made the list. Even in the traditional internet sector of e-commerce, Japan's development lags far behind countries like China and the United States. The reasons for this include both inherent factors such as limited market size and a lack of innovative atmosphere, as well as acquired deficiencies like missing critical development periods and lacking core technologies.

In the face of the disillusionment of the Internet era, the Japanese government has begun to focus on the Web3 sector. Since the beginning of this year, the Japanese government has continuously introduced multiple policies to support the development of Web3, including the enactment of a stablecoin bill and the promotion of digital asset applications. At the same time, Japan's advantages in areas such as gaming and animation also align with emerging concepts like the metaverse and NFTs.

Under the dual promotion of policies and the market, Japan's Web3 ecosystem has shown a vigorous development trend. As of early 2022, Japan had 30 cryptocurrency exchanges licensed by the Financial Services Agency, with more than 6 million users opening related accounts. Many well-known Japanese companies, such as Bandai Namco and Sega, are also actively entering the Web3 field, collaborating to develop the blockchain project Oasys. In addition, venture capital firms are also actively investing, with SoftBank, SBI, and others increasing their investment in blockchain companies.

Despite the many challenges Japan still faces in the Web3 field, the government's policy support and the proactive transformation of enterprises have undoubtedly injected a strong boost into its future development. Whether Japan can take advantage of the Web3 trend to achieve a leapfrog development and reshape its status in the digital economy era remains to be seen.