Ripple has continued to make waves in Japan and its strategic collaboration with Japanese financial giant, SBI Holding has been an important catalyst for the growing popularity of the firm in the country.
According to the Hiroyuki Mihara, the COO Bitbank, one of the largest crypto exchange in Japan, Ripple’s relationships with Japanese firms could be the reason behind increasing popularity of Ripple and XRP. The COO, in a recent interview with Blockinpress, said
“Ripple has good relationships with many companies, including SBI Holdings of Japan. Of course, we have good relationships not only with Japanese companies but also with the whole world. That’s why Japanese people see it as a reliable cryptocurrency, which seems to be the biggest reason, because of the perception that it is easy to use through these relationships.”
However, what might affect XRP trade volume in the country is Ripple’s decision to pull back from providing XRP over-the-counter at scale toward the end of the second quarter, “in light of the OTC desks’ ability to source institutional demand for XRP in the open markets”.
OTC trading has been very popular among the crypto traders in the country. Addressing the same, Mihara stated,
“OTC is the most popular in the Japanese market. I think this is something special for the Japanese market. I know that Sell & Buy order books like Binance order books are popular in Korea. But in Japan, OTC order books are the most popular, so they are different.”
The country has been extremely bullish on cryptocurrency, in general. Besides, the Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike, revealed plans to launch Tokyo’s native digital currency based on Proof-of-Concept [PoC] protocol. Recently, Deputy Prime Minister of Japan and Minister of Finance, Taro Aso who was also the keynote speaker at the FINSUM fintech conference in Tokyo spoke in an affirmation regarding the need to adopt emerging tech while addressing crypto.
Another catalyzing factor, that led to XRP gaining traction in the country may be the petition to make XRP the official cryptocurrency of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The petition created by Ken Takahashi in 2018, was signed by 14,110 supporters. This was occasioned with Ripple’s flurry of collaboration, including its tie-up with MoneyTap.
