Eventually! BSV blockchain makes new inroads in Japan with promises of the world’s ‘fastest, cheapest, most secure blockchain’

Tokyo hosted its first BSV blockchain-specific seminar day yesterday, with an event aimed at business people and developers. The day-long bilingual seminar featured presentations from nChain and exchange BitTrade, as well as local BSV blockchain projects including YenPoint, Frobots, Blarecast and Chainbow (NoteSV).

The event was organized by nChain and the FinTEK Center for Finance, Technology and Economics at Keio University. The BSV Blockchain Association and BitTrade (formerly Huobi Japan) also sponsored. Masumi Hamahira, BSV Blockchain’s Japanese ambassador, took the MC role.

Japan has been a focal point for Bitcoin development at times over the past 14 years, as home to early-adopter entrepreneurs such as Roger Ver and (more notoriously) Mark Karpeles. However, things have been much quieter on the BSV front – BSV only fairly recently gained regulatory approval as a trading unit, and the country’s borders were effectively closed during the COVID-19 years, making visits and conferences almost impossible.

Fingers crossed, those days are in the past, and 2023 will see a huge influx of travelers to Japan. It also means that the BSV industry can relaunch its push into the Japanese market, which is potentially profitable if handled properly.

The Keio-nChain seminar was definitely a good start. The presentations were often general and sometimes technical. Most, if not all, participants had previous experience with blockchain, although many were unfamiliar with BSV blockchain concepts.

nChain’s presenters focused on BSV blockchain’s key message, which is that it is the cheapest, fastest and most secure blockchain network. BSV blockchain’s limitless scaling capacity means it could one day process as much data as the entire Internet in 2023, and much more, as billions more wearables and IoT devices join the global network.

After being welcomed by Hamahira and Keio FinTEK Center Director Dr. Teruo Nakatsuma, BSV Blockchain Director Thomas Giacomo kicked things off with a general introduction to BSV and why it matters.

This “will affect almost all verticals and industries,” Giacomo said. The BSV network must grow “at least ten times larger than the Internet itself,” adding infrastructure for secure financial transactions and company interactions. The latter two necessities exist as attempts to connect to today’s Internet, but are not natively built into the network itself. BSV blockchain technology, along with the increasing adoption of IPv6, does this.

Giacomo called it “management and automation of all back office transactions.” It improves privacy and allows for selective disclosure and confidentiality when needed. In finance, it “makes illiquid assets liquid” and returns data ownership and control to individual users. This will have benefits for social networks, supply/value chains, gaming, “RegTech” and more.

He also acknowledged the “three Bitcoins” issue, noting that BSV is the only blockchain network that restored and still follows the rules of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin protocol. It is the only network that can legitimately claim Bitcoin’s name and pedigree. The BSV blockchain has proven to be both cheaper and capable of processing data 10 times faster than its primary “competitor”, Ethereum. Unlike the “other Bitcoins”, BSV does not and cannot change its fundamental protocol rules. If you want real global adoption, especially in enterprises, the basic protocol should never change.

Giacomo also took the next presentation slot to talk specifically about LiteClient, the toolbox for applications to securely communicate with the BSV blockchain without the need to run a full node. Interchanges and other projects “shouldn’t take care of infrastructure, as costs would be too high,” he noted. “You just have to interact.”

The exchange operators at BitTrade had some questions about this and asked what help is available for companies like them to use SPV and LiteClient. The response, as always, was “come and talk to us” about specific implementation solutions, which is something nChain and the BSV Association are always happy to do for interested parties in Japan and elsewhere.

Exchanges having to run their own full node for each blockchain asset they list has been one barrier to getting BSV listed on digital asset exchanges. Although SPV interaction removes this requirement, it is still largely an unknown or misunderstood concept to many outside the Bitcoin world (despite being described in Satoshi’s 2008 white paper).

The next two presentations came from nChain’s research director, Alessio Pagani, and John Murphy. Pagani emphasized that at nChain “we are a company, but we are academically driven.” They made several references to nChain’s R&D focus, with particular attention to its massive IP/patent library (ranked #5 in the world).

Dr. Pagani talked mainly about the “Web3 revolution,” building an Internet that is “decentralized, user-centered, and P2P.” Web3 values ​​include “CIA” for data or “Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.” Security must be baked in by design, while data owners can selectively disclose what information they share. This can include Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), which can verify data without revealing its content, e.g. to prove that your age is correct without revealing what that age is or producing a document that reveals additional private information.

It’s not just people either. Verifiable “device identity” is an important component of Web3 security, and Dr. Pagani played a short demo roll showing how BSV handles it.

John Murphy’s talk was more technical, describing nChain’s R&D prototyping tools needed to implement BSV interactions. “These tools are coming, but they’re not here yet,” he said. He added that nChain’s motto is “we bring research to life,” later playing his own demo role for sharing medical records.

Later sessions in the day focused on individual BSV projects based in or directly related to Japan. Jerry Chan talked about his coding education game Frobots; Chainbow Founder/CEO Long Li talked about the challenges associated with developing the BSV app NotesSV and others; and recent Japanese immigrant Shem Booth-Spain gave updates on the artist-centric media app Blarecast.

All of these projects use features either unique to BSV blockchain or that perform much better on BSV, such as NFT mining and trading, automated “smart contracts”, data transactions and micropayment transactions.

Although the presentations were mainly a broad overview of the BSV world and remained fairly general in nature, this is necessary for the Japanese market as language barriers often prevent the free flow of information from other countries, and the country does not have much opportunity for sharing personal information for much of the time that Bitcoin has existed as BSV.

It is important to note that the audience remained the same size throughout the day and actually grew as it went on. Attendees had the chance to network and discuss their plans, and there seemed to be genuine interest in talking directly to companies like nChain and organizations like the BSV Association to find new solutions to old problems.

The seminar was still small-scale compared to other similar events worldwide, but for Japan it was a good start. There are many more events planned in the coming months, all of which hope to spread the BSV blockchain message even further.

Look: The only blockchain that can handle speed and volume is BSV

New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide for learning more about blockchain technology.