Ripple’s chief executive officer Brad Garlinghouse has taken to his X account to share his impressions of meeting a high-ranking Japanese official this week, as they talked about the adoption of crypto and blockchain technology in Japan.
Ripple boss: Japan committed to advancing crypto tech
This week, Brad Garlinghouse visited Japan, and during his time at the XRP Community Day event, he met Taira Masaaki, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives, who is also in charge of various committees related to Web3 and AI innovations.
Sharing his impressions from that meeting, Garlinghouse tweeted that Japanese leaders are “committed to advancing crypto and blockchain technology. He pointed out that in Japan, it is being implemented “through clear frameworks and constructive policy that protects consumers and enables innovation.”
Great to meet Rep @TAIRAMASAAKI in Tokyo this week -- Japan's leaders are committed to advancing crypto and blockchain technology, through clear frameworks and constructive policy that protects consumers and enables innovation. https://t.co/3WPJT05TuO
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) September 6, 2024
This statement may be interpreted as a reproach to the U.S., where there are still no clear regulations for the cryptocurrency space, and the SEC continues its legal battle against Ripple, while it is also suing numerous other crypto platforms over crypto being “unregistered securities,” as they claim.
👋🇯🇵 XRP community – join @bgarlinghouse, @joelkatz, @monicalongsf and many more for XRP Community Day and Night events on September 6 in Tokyo. Expect insightful discussions on and off-stage, as well as demos, networking and entertainment – register today:…
— RippleX (@RippleXDev) August 13, 2024
As for Taira Masaaki, he tweeted after meeting Garlinghouse: “We exchanged views on how to utilize blockchain to maximize Japan's potential.”
Japanese largest banks pilot stablecoin platform
As reported by Chinese cryptocurrency blogger and journalist Colin Wu, Japanese financial giants continue their efforts to adopt cryptocurrency. In a recent tweet, he shared that the three largest banks are planning to create a stablecoin platform to enable local businesses to make fast international settlements.
Those banks are Mitsubishi UFJ Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Mizuho Bank.
This program, Wu continues, will be titled Project Pax, and it will be run by such blockchain players as Progmat, Datachain and TOKI. He added that more banks in various parts of the world are expected to join in to take part in Project Pax.
Currently, the overall capitalization of the stablecoin market has reached a whopping $160 billion. These Japanese giants are not the only parties that have been trying to enter this market niche recently. Ripple has also started to roll out its dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, which will be run both on the XRP Ledger and on the Ethereum blockchain.