Japanese Gaming Giant Enters Metaverse, BitBank Adds Lightning Amid Crypto Tax Reform Call

As the Japanese crypto scene is sending more signs of adoption and investments, a blockchain business leader is calling for a crypto tax laws reform.

Here’s what recently happened in the Land of Rising Crypto Sun.

The Japanese gaming, entertainment, and toy-making giant Bandai Namco has announced that it will invest USD 130m in new metaverse operations as it becomes the latest heavyweight mega-company to pivot toward virtual worlds. CoinPost reported that the firm has made metaverse development a “medium-term” “priority strategy,” and will leverage a number of its intellectual properties. The firm was created as a merger of Bandai and Namco, two of Japan’s biggest arcade and console gaming giants. The firm owns a number of multi-million-selling game franchises, including Tekken, Pac-man, Naruto, Gundo, Soulcalibur, and Dark Souls.

One of Japan’s biggest crypto exchanges, BitBank, has announced that it is launching a Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network solution. In a blog post, the firm said that its solution, an app named NLoop, had been created with a view to allowing BitBank customers to make Lightning Network bitcoin deposits and withdrawals on the exchange – facilitating BTC remittances and small or micro-payments. A senior BitBank developer was quoted as stating that “many of the entities that are currently called ‘crypto exchanges’ will soon become Lightning Service Providers (LSPs)” – and will need to make use of liquidity-providing solutions like its own.

The time to reform Japan’s crypto tax laws has come, a blockchain business leader has stated. The comments came from Sota Watanabe, the CEO of Stake Technologies, the developer of the public Astar blockchain network. In a post, the CEO wrote that existing laws that prevent crypto holders from paying taxes in anything other than the fiat JPY were a poor fit for the Web3 era – and noted that this situation was forcing Japanese talent overseas. He claimed that if the government was serious about fostering Web3-related business, it should at least create special regulation-free Web3 zones. An MP, Masanobu Ogura, of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, shared Watanabe’s post on Twitter and opined that Japan needed to do what was necessary to “prevent an outflow of Web3 entrepreneurs and technical experts.”

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