Tokenizing real world assets (RWAs) with Kokyo NFT and beyondClub

Recorded: Feb. 21, 2024 Duration: 1:01:00

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just waiting for everyone to arrive in the space
and for our speakers to get up on stage.
We'll just give it a few minutes
before we get started here.
Are we waiting for anyone else to come up on stage?
I think we're looking good, Megan.
GM everybody.
Oh, James, here too.
Okay, have we got Yuki here from Kokio NFT?
Yeah, GM, GM.
I'm Yuki from Kokio NFT.
Yeah, well, originally actually I'm from Beyond Club,
one of the founders of Beyond Club.
But yeah, today I will represent Kokio NFT.
Wonderful.
And do we have Beyond Club here as well?
Hey, this is Ed from Beyond Club.
Hey, Ed, glad you could make it.
So our space today is mainly about, I guess we're going to be featuring Kokio NFT and
real world assets.
So I was wondering if you'd like to just kick off our conversation here and talk a
little bit about what it is about a star that chose you to deploy a project on our network.
Yeah, for sure.
So yeah, thank you for inviting us for this special AMA and thank you for having us, Megan.
So Kokio NFT unlocks exclusive local Japanese experience available only for NFT holders.
And this one is produced by Japan Airlines and Hakodo.
And Hakodo is one of the biggest marketing agencies in Japan.
And then, yeah, as a local experience, we featured like six experience this time from
north to south.
And actually last year, we had a first iteration of Kokio NFT.
And actually, at the time, we deployed on the ISAR-M mainnet.
But this time, yeah, yeah, with align with the launch of Astor GKVM.
So we decided to use to build on top of Astor GKVM.
I'm super excited.
We're so glad to have you as part of our launch.
And we're excited to be moving over to the Ethereum ecosystem, of course, I've got so
many amazing projects in the ecosystem coming over from Polygon.
So yeah, I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about Kokio NFT and what was it that
inspired you about working with real world assets in Japan?
Yeah, for sure.
Just really quick, I want to just jump in really quick, if that's okay, if it's possible
to bring Rarible up on stage, we want to make sure our community can see all of this.
I'm not sure, Astor, who's behind there.
Yeah, we'll get Rarible right on here.
Glad to have you here, James.
Yeah, just give me a second here.
Okay, so maybe while waiting, I can start to explain the six Kokio NFTs.
Sure, yeah, go ahead.
Oh, yeah, cool.
So yeah, this time, as I said, we feature like six local experience from north to south.
So it's quite a variety of it.
So just give a short description of each six experience.
So first one is Fireworks Clues NFT.
So you can calculate the design of the fireworks with like Fireworks Master or Craftman, and
then you can see the fireworks from the clues on the lake.
That's first experience.
And the second one is Premium Sake NFT.
So you can tour the Premium Sake Bluely, including like restricted areas, and then you can receive
a bottle of Premium Sake, Premium Japanese Sake.
This is very premium, so it's kind of sold out very quickly.
But if you bought this NFTs, you can have like a VIP card with priority purchasing light,
like forever.
So even like next year, when we have a new Sake, you can prioritize, I mean, you can
be prioritized to purchase it.
And then third one is like Japanese Knife NFT.
So what you can do here is you can craft your own one-of-a-kind knife with the Craftman.
So you can craft like the knife itself, but also, I mean, blade and the handles.
But not only that, you can also tour like a float action site or visit like more Craftman,
not only just knife, but also like old papers, old Japanese papers, or those kinds of stuff.
And then try to do it by yourself.
And the fourth one is Samlai Family NFT.
So actually, like you can experience day in the life of a Samlai, so you can become a
member of like 400 year history, Samlai family, and then participate in like a private annual
event and stay like their historical place, like for overnight.
And the fifth one is Space Art NFT at Tanigashima.
So yeah, Tanigashima is like the major city for the space or launching the locket to the
space in Japan.
Then what you can do is, I mean, they have a space art festival like every year.
So you can produce and then co-create the artwork with famous like artist called Yasuhiro
And then you might have a chance to send that artwork, co-created artwork to the outer space
by a locket.
And then the last one, but not the least, is Kokuto Shochu NFT.
So Shochu is another kind of Japanese alcoholic drink.
And then it's something like a blambei, but made by black sugar.
And then the unique thing here is these, I mean, in the bottle, we make these Shochu
drinks, listen to the music, I mean, three different types of music from Latin or lok
and then country music.
Actually, we make them listen to the different music and then, yeah, they have a like, they
already have, it started actually from last year, but each of them have a different taste
already based on those music.
So you can have, I mean, you can get those three bottles and also you can have a, I mean,
taste as a first person to try it out.
So basically those six other, like, real world experience you can have if you purchase those,
each of these NFTs.
Wow, okay, so I guess the NFT itself is a little bit like a ticket to your experience
in various hometowns, I guess, in Japan, would you say that?
Yeah, exactly.
So you can have access to those experience and also have some light to like priority
purchase or those kinds of stuff.
Wow, okay.
So how complete of an experience is it?
Is it more like, are these more like just tours and people have to arrive on their own
or how do they include some kind of airfare or how does that work?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So basically this NFT only provide the experience or light to access some kind of, yeah, priority
purchase or those kind of stuff.
So it doesn't basically include like a flight fare to Japan or like a, how to call this,
your fee for the staying at some hotels.
I mean, other than some light, for some light, as I said, you can stay at like a historical
So it already includes the one night stay.
But for other experience, basically it doesn't include like, you know, fare, I mean airline
fare or those for the state, you know, fee.
But yeah, hopefully you will use Japan airline to visit Japan as well.
Interesting.
So I know you've, you're quite well known for your partnership with Japan airline.
Are you able to tell us a little bit more about what that promotion was all about and
the NFT itself?
Yeah, sure.
So basically the hot, yeah, let, let me just explain about bug gland or like a mission
of Koku NFT first.
So yeah, as I said, Japan airline and the Hakkoto started this Koku NFT project like
a year ago.
And then, I mean, two years ago, actually, and then when they launched a year ago for
the first situation, but their mission is like our mission is one of the problem Japan
encounters is population decrease.
So yeah, I mean, in Japan, the population is now decreasing by year in year.
And then to solve that issue, after travel perspective or travel industry perspective,
what we want to do is we want to find a way to connect these local areas to or people's
local people's to connect with more people outside the area.
I mean, it's not only Japanese people, but also all over the world.
So we want to try to find a way how we can connect people from local and then global.
And then in that problem, we want to solve, we realize NFT could be the best way to do
it as as it described your like a membership or ticket.
And also you could feel as the belonging for the community as well.
So that's why we decided to use NFT, I mean, to launch Koku NFTs.
So yeah, that's basically the like, motivation behind this Koku NFT.
And then yeah, for the second iteration, we as I mentioned, we feature these six experiences.
And also as a promotion, we launch freemint NFT called Origami NFT, or whether do you
guys know called Origami itself?
I think many of us are familiar with Origami and the art of folding paper.
Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.
So it's like folding paper to create some objects.
And then, yeah, what we are doing as Origami NFT is, yeah, if you go to the Origami NFT website,
by doing some quests, you can mint the first freemint NFT, which is just the plain paper.
I mean, it could be random seven colors, but you can get one paper.
But once you by doing like a weekly quest, your paper will be more folded.
And then if you reach the last quest, you can make the claim Origami.
And the claim is like the logo of the Japan Alliance.
So that's why.
And also the claim is like the symbol for the piece.
So yeah, that's why.
So I think it's kind of exciting or very gamified way to engage as well.
It does sound like an exciting project, and I guess the NFTs are dynamic, and can you
say they evolve a bit?
Oh, yes, exactly.
So it's a dynamic NFT.
So it starts from playing NFT, and then once you do the second quest, it will be half folded.
And then after that, yeah, it will be folded again by doing third quest, and then something
like that.
Interesting.
I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about those dynamic NFTs.
In the Polkadot ecosystem, we have a standard called Remark, which allows NFTs to evolve.
But for the EVM ecosystem, there are some alternatives.
So I wonder if you can explain how your solution works.
Oh, yeah, thanks.
So basically, yeah, we made it simple.
So by you doing some action, take an action, I mean, which is quest, we basically change
the pointing images from the first one to second one.
So that we update the metadata based on your engagement, and by doing that, we could change
the image of the NFT to be based on the level you have, or based on the quest you completed.
Oh, very nice.
Do you know if that adheres to a certain standard or not?
Like an ERC dash, or EIP dash 4337 kind of thing.
Yeah, just for the geeks out there.
Actually, we're just using the ERC 721, but we customize it to make it dynamic.
Oh, good to know.
All right.
Well, would you say that's something that makes your project unique, then, that you're
extending the ERC 721 standard?
Oh, yeah, thanks.
Yeah, actually, that's what we built as the beyond curve.
And yeah, we implemented this dynamic NFT things to this origami NFT campaigns as well.
Wow, very, very nice.
So at this point, I just want to, Rams, I wonder if you have any questions to ask Kokio NFT?
No, it's just wonderful to hear about that and just make me just think about real world
assets and tokenization in general.
And I know we have some pretty knowledgeable people here, James, over from Rarible, as
well as Jack, too.
But I did have one question before we move on to some of their thoughts and insights.
What do you see?
What's the next real world assets that you have on the table to tokenize?
Or what do you hope to get to?
Yeah, that's a great question.
So I mean, it's messing promise yet, but yeah.
So this time, I mean, actually, for the first situation last year, we featured like two
local experience.
And at this time, we featured six experiences, as I mentioned.
So we want to hopefully expand it to more from north to south.
And then, yeah, even like a small city, each of the city have a variety of experience they
can show showcase to the how to go to the people around the world.
And then, you know, it's most of those things are not just on top of like a guidebook or
maybe not featured in Instagram yet.
But yeah, we want to find more experiences to feature and then have more like, you know,
I think one of the thing is like a food experience.
I think that could be a good, good thing or more like cultural experience, we should definitely
we can do that.
But we want to onboard much more experiences from around Japan to, you know, tokenize it
Yeah, I just want to I just want to add to what Yuki was saying.
This is an ad from Beyond Club.
So so before we worked on Kokio NFTs, like Yuki, Yuki and I were also part of the core
team at Banklist Japan.
So one of our friends has been really big on organizing regenerative tourism to northern
Japan in an area called Aomori.
So like Yuki was saying, where I think a lot of the travel in Japan has been more like
Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, like the Golden Route.
And there hasn't been a lot of, you know, like focus in like lesser traveled areas.
And one of the areas that our friend is focusing on is Hachinohe, which is her hometown.
And we participate in this like summer festival called Hachinohe Sanshitaisai, which is like
a summer festival to sort of, you know, appeal to to to the gods and deities for a better
harvest for for the year.
And that was actually something that was incredibly special even for for Japanese, because unless
you're actually part of the community, you actually can't take part in it.
So but it took a lot of like relationship building.
And like we were able to become like active participants in a very local festival where
we were pulling these like gigantic floats in a parade.
And so we weren't just like watching from the sidelines, we were actually participating.
And I think like, like as a like, first of all, I think we were really grateful and honored
to be able to work on something like Kokio NFTs, where it encourages people to, you know,
sort of like find your second hometown.
And I think like there definitely is a lot of different experiences across Japan that's
really interesting.
And I think like by tokenizing like some of these real world assets, like, for example,
like if we were to create entities to allow folks to participate in some of these cultural
events or even or even like persposing the creation of like these floats, for example,
those could be like some some use cases that have our RWA.
And I think specifically something something travel related in Japan is is probably something
that's really fascinating for both domestic and international travelers.
That sounds like a regenerative travel is kind of self-explanatory and it's a really
noble cause.
I just want to make sure, do we have everyone up on stage here that we're expecting?
I see that we've got a couple new speaker requests.
Oh, yeah, if you can invite the Beyond Travel account and 0XZZ, I think that's great from
our side.
Let me get right on that.
In the meantime, I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about the digital aspect
of these RWAs.
Are these some more about experiences or are we actually representing assets with some
of those app entities?
Yeah, I think I think there's like two aspects to it.
Yeah, like one is you can trade it in for like an IRL experience.
So, for example, like the Sake Premium Sake NFT, you can trade it in for like a brewery
tour as well as like two areas that are usually restricted from the general public.
But then also actually taste raw Sake of this process called Uka, which is like mimicking
like raindrops for Sake.
And because it's a very like very special process, like there's only like a thousand
bottles created every single year and it's always it's always sold out.
So I think one of the one of the digital elements is like, yeah, like you you have like you
do get the IRL tour experience.
But then as part of like an NFT holder, you first of all, like you join the community
of Tokyo NFT holders where you you get a bit more information about about the experience,
but also like connect with others that are that are interested in similar cultural experiences.
And then you can also as an NFT holder sort of like have this ongoing residual rights
to like have priority purchases for the premium Uka Sake.
So I think like each of these experiences like have have sort of like a like a like
a physical experience that you get.
But then also as an NFT holder, like there's something that's exclusive and an ongoing.
I personally will most likely purchase the space art one, because like I can't think
of something cooler than, you know, being able to to co create like some artwork and
have it, you know, sent to space in one form or another.
So yeah, that's something I'm personally excited about.
That does sound exciting, indeed.
Rams, go ahead there, I see you'd like to yeah, yeah, no, it is super exciting as well.
I heard sake, I heard food, Japanese food, maybe the next round to discover, just just
keep me in the loop when the food comes out.
I'm a big fan.
I love to tokenize, you know, a whole sushi bar and and own it.
But anyway, more on that later.
James Rarible, thank you again for joining the space.
I know you probably get exposure to tons of artists and even the new developments in the
NFT standards.
Can you talk a little bit about, you know, RWAs and tokenization and and where you see
it? What's the what's the current situation and where do you see it going?
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate it.
Thank you, everyone, for having us.
I think what's interesting about RWAs is that what we're seeing is a natural convergence
of what is kind of the the real life use case of an NFT.
We've all enjoyed and really, I think, probably divulged a little bit too much in the PFP
era and the art era.
And we've sat there for a little longer than I think this space needed to, because if we
want to see mass adoption, if we want to see like true onboarding of the next million
tens of millions, hundreds of millions of users to Web 3, we have to offer real life
use cases that solve real life problems and and offer real life value.
And so I think that there's a lot of like opportunity when you look at something like
the Tokyo NFT where where you're offering these unique limited edition, very like kind
of exclusive opportunities for people to jump in.
And through the power of minting an NFT, they have provenance built in, they know ownership.
It's all there.
The artwork is there.
But then they have this added benefit of a real world kind of impact and an experience
and something that's beyond just having a cool PFP or a piece of art in your wallet.
And that's not to I don't want to like diminish the value of what PFPs and artwork have done
in this space.
We're wearable.
We love artwork.
We love PFPs.
We're champions of artists and creators in this space.
But I think the natural next step is for Web 3 to continue to mature so that when we bring
it up to our family members, they don't roll their eyes when we say NFT, but they they
are eyes get excited and they they ask questions because they look at the impact that it could
have on their day to day or or they realize the special exclusive opportunity that they
could unlock because they're a holder and the the membership of the community that they
get to be part of because they hold a specific NFT.
So I think Kokio is really onto something.
And I think probably like, you know, it's cliche to say we're early.
We're still early, but I think this is going to really be one of the mass use cases of
the future as we look at what the next wave of Web 3 adoption looks like.
I can't agree with you more, James.
I'm clapping right now in my mind like like one of those mothers, like I can't agree with
you more.
So some of the examples I've seen at my time at Astar and in the NFT space, which is pretty
young and all things considered, have been, you know, talks of tokenizing receipts for
your purchases.
I mean, there's the clear ways and paths I think we could start seeing with NFTs.
And it's just I think just the tip of the iceberg.
Like you said, we sat a little bit too long in the art one.
That's just one out of many, many ways we could go about.
One of the things that one of the one team that worked on Astar, Shushi Top Marketing,
worked with 7-Eleven Holding in Japan.
They created a method to basically mint an NFT when you're at the ATM, you get a piece
of art for your donation that you made at the ATM.
Things like that already automatically put you in a different category, like you said,
community even.
Whether that develops into something else, it becomes, you know, an item of exploration
for collectors who are fans of that artist who created the art for that donation receipt.
You know, it's so many things we could explore it.
It's really cutting edge.
Yeah, 100%.
I think that's what we really need to look at as a space too, is maybe we've all become
pretty comfortable in these bubbles that we've existed in, and that's okay.
But the reality is that the next wave of mass adoption won't come from the folks who are
hanging out on Twitter all day like us.
It won't be the DJs, it will be the normies, as we call them.
And the normies need to know why NFTs have value beyond price go up, price go down.
I think we're getting there, right?
Like we're starting to see this innovation happen in the space.
Kokio is doing a great job.
Kokio NFT project is going to be like maybe one of the earliest, but I think there are
many more who are bubbling up.
And there's a lot of excitement around different major web to brands and established enterprises
who are looking at this space and saying, oh, there's something valuable here.
The blockchain technology has the power to democratize ownership.
That's something.
We should pay attention here.
We should innovate here.
So I'm really, I know it's cliche to say, but I'm bullish on the future of the space,
not because of price go up, but because of the potential of this technology to change
the way we live our regular everyday lives.
Well said, well said.
I want to give the mic over to Ed or any other team member from Kokio.
Anything more on this?
Or do you see like the future, the power of this is very high.
One more example I'll throw in there recently, maybe some of you caught it, is the Pax team.
Pax underscore XYZ, who are digitizing Pokemon cards, right?
I mean, there is other teams working on this as well.
But when you have Astar and it's Japanese roots and connections there, it hits differently,
Trading space for trading cards, for all types of cards, sports, memorabilia, et cetera.
There's tons of potential here.
But yeah, Ed or others, take it away.
Where do you see this going?
Yeah, I think, so like from a Beyond Club perspective, I think we're definitely seeing
more and more enterprises, like Web2 enterprises or large enterprises, like start conversations
with us to explore how we can leverage blockchain technologies, RWAs, for experimentation.
I think Japan is this very interesting and unique market where there's a whole confluence
of things.
One of them, like you said, is the creative IP.
But then I think, specifically, in Japan, there's a lot of, quote unquote, more obvious
use cases.
And I think, like, travel is one of them, but I think, like, another one is loyalty
and rewards, because, like, one of the benefits of, like, blockchain is interoperability.
And a lot of times, like, loyalty programs and reward programs are not interoperable.
But in Japan, like, there are, like, these quasi-interoperable point programs, like Rakuten
points, D points, et cetera.
But I think it's, like, sort of like the next, like, one of the more obvious frontiers
is, like, how do you apply that to loyalty programs?
And I think, like, because it's not too far of a jump, I think that's why, like, some
of these enterprises are having these conversations, because they're like, hey, like, how do we
experiment with something like this?
And like, to get, quote unquote, like, the normies interested in participating.
Because I think, ultimately, the success of mass adoption for WEP-3 and blockchain
technology is if we can actually onboard and partner with these, like, large organizations.
And I think Kokkyo NFT is a great example, because Japan Airlines is partnering, and
Hakkoto is partnering with Beyond Club in order to do that.
I think it has to be a collaborative effort in order for it to be mass adopted.
Onboarding the normies with the normie kind of structures that we have.
Loyalty programs is great.
I think I've been part of so many.
I think I've threw out many punch cards as well for the coffee shops I visited in Portland,
But those are things that are easy to grasp and understand.
I totally agree there.
Interoperability, too.
My loyalty points are worth something at this coffee shop, but also mean something elsewhere.
I can't even imagine the kind of future that it enables.
Super exciting.
And then when it comes to airlines and those kind of industries, I think we're all familiar
with the referral programs that exist in our space and the points programs there.
I think this is just something we, as humans, I think we're naturally attracted to.
It speaks for itself.
But now we're adding a new dimension to it.
And this is all because of this technology that we're using, this web-free space that
we're flourishing and that we're early in, actually, like James said.
But thanks for the scoop there.
I do want to ask the flip question, though.
I want to know what the struggles that your teams and your proper professions, what struggles
can we expect or are we seeing already?
Yeah, good question.
So as COCA NFT, I think, yeah, initially one of the potential challenges was like to
onboard those experienced providers.
Yeah, because as I mentioned, explained earlier, these six experienced providers are kind of
traditional places.
Yeah, especially like Samulai, it's like 400 or old history, you know, they have.
So it's pretty much traditional.
So at first, we thought, I mean, explaining or explaining NFT or those kind of new technology
to those people might take time or they might just disagree, they don't accept it.
And that's it.
But the good thing, I mean, which is a good supplies for us.
But the good thing is they're pretty accepting these kind of offers we had.
And they're very excited about to, you know, pull by this kind of experience through NFT
to the people around the world.
So actually, yeah, one of the main reason is they want to also they're also looking
for the new way to attract more people to, you know, engage with the experience or engage
with their tradition or engage with their culture as well.
So I think, yeah, actually, that that was the potential struggle we might encounter
and then we might encounter in the future when we want to onboard more experience.
But you're right now, actually, this is a good iteration for working with those six
experienced providers.
And then, yeah, hopefully, this, this one becomes successful so that it can be much
easier to discuss with other, you know, like people who have a culture, including food,
and then like traditional less than could accept NFT to get to have her like, you know,
special meals or something like that.
I think that can be more easier for us to appreciate them to be onboard if we could
make this successful.
So when it comes to on the topic of onboarding normies into the space, and now we'd like
to think of the next wave of web3 adoption is going to bring in, you know, most average
users from web2.
I'm just wondering if you have any ideas about improving the user experience and the acquisition
of NFTs in particular.
So for this Google NFT sales, we basically implemented two things for normies to, you
know, purchase it easily.
So one is we implemented social login, so that even if they don't have any wallet in
advance, like making it a non-custodial wallet, they can still log in with like a line, which
is the most famous social media in Japan line or Google to create an account.
And then, yeah, we generally like NPC wallet through their social accounts so that they
can feel the account creation process as the normal, you know, web2 service.
And then when they want to purchase it, they don't have to pay by crypto only.
You cannot only pay by crypto, but also you can pay by credit card as well.
So that, yeah, yeah, even if they don't have any wallet or any crypto, you can just create
an account with Google and then you can pay by credit card.
And then you can see it in my page that you have this NFT and then maybe it's the experience.
So these flow to purchase is kind of streamlined so that even if they're not familiar with
NFTs, but they interested in this experience, they can still purchase it.
This is a great question also for Rarible, a literal marketplace.
How do you plan to make it so the UI, the interface for the web2 users is comparable
to what they already used to and keeping up with the development of NFTs and RWAs?
Yeah, it's a great question and it's something we think about all the time.
Our team is constantly looking at like, how do we improve this user experience?
And many of us, if you've been here for more than even just a few months, we've experienced
a lot of evolution in this space.
We've seen some of the worst and some of the fastest evolution in any technology.
And what I think we're most excited about and what we are oftentimes partaking in is
looking at ways to say not how does web2 technology make web3 better, but how does web3 technology
take an experience like credit card checkout on web2 and improve it and make it actually
web3 native and bring it to a new technology beyond what just integrating an old technology
to throw a band-aid on?
I think one of the biggest issues that we run into for new users is that it's still
quite complicated to think through the process of what blockchain am I minting on?
What wallet do I need?
How do I bridge my funds?
How do I move from one to another?
What happens if my NFT ends up in this wallet and I forget what the secret passkey is or
if I lose my 12-word or 16-word secret phrase?
There's all these little things that make it difficult for folks like my dad who is
an internet user.
He's quite techy.
He enjoys technology and the blockchain is just a little too much.
There's too many opportunities for him to misstep and make a mistake.
Those are the areas that we think about.
In particular, I think one of the fascinating spots we're seeing very good and quick innovation
is the bridging experience.
We're seeing a lot of people abstract away what it is to bridge and that mindset of you
don't have to do two, three, four-step bridging.
It can happen in a single transaction.
We're really excited to see more of that happen as really we step into what is the reality
of a multi-chain world.
Nice, yeah.
My last follow-up question on that is, when is Preble going to integrate line or WhatsApp?
I could just use that account.
It's a good question.
Social login is something that's massive.
I can't give any specific timeline.
I can say it's something our team is actively interested in and researching because I think
you're right.
When we think about Web3, at the crux of what it offers today, it's a digital identity.
It's a spot where you can have digital representation of yourself.
We all love it, right?
We all have our various PFPs, we're all part of different communities, and a natural next
step is to find ways for social or even email login to make those things easier.
We're excited to see a lot of folks who are innovating in that space.
I can't give you a date or a roadmap.
I don't have that, but I can say it's something that we're constantly looking at and excited
to see the innovations happening in the space.
You heard it here first from James, March 23rd, 2024, they'll integrate now.
No, no, no, no, no, hey, wait now, hey, hey.
Just kidding.
I'm just kidding.
All right, thank you, James, so much.
Back on the, we talked about the Web2, the dormies and all that stuff and regulation
we touched upon, but Kokkyo and the Beyond Club team here have a unique position because
they're working with teams and collaborating in Japan, which have been Japanese enterprises,
and that's pretty unique in itself, and it's something I wanted to highlight and hopefully
talk about a little bit more here because Japan is on the Web3 train.
They're talking about it with government entities.
Even our founder, Satawantanabe, is actively participating and pushing for changes on the
legal side as well with taxations and the capital gains tax and whatnot and making it
easier for venture capitalists to jump in as well and start fundraising and buying.
So I wanted to get your opinions about this, Ed, Beyond Club, Kokkyo, on how this has enabled
you to explore the space a little bit more, probably make it easier to take some risk.
But yeah, I just wanted to grab your thoughts on that.
Yeah, so yeah, that's a good question.
I think, as you mentioned earlier, it's gradually the regulation side or taxation side, it
became better and better.
Yeah, originally, you know, in Japan, Mt. Gox was in Japan as well before, so Mt. Gox
things happened, or we also had one big issue with centralized exchange like six, seven
years ago.
So after that, regulation in Japan was pretty high.
But now, I think around two years ago, since two years ago, we started to have a more good
discussion with the political side about how we can make regulation better or how we can
make taxation better as well for more enterprise or more entrepreneurs to learn about this
earlier, I mean, this industry.
And then also, yeah, not only just this political things, but also, you know, Japan originally
have a good IPs, yeah, like as Lance mentioned, like Pokemon card, yeah, Pokemon is also from
And yeah, Mario is Mario as well.
So we have a good IPs, like mangas, animes as well.
So we can tokenize, yeah, we can tokenize and then make those IPs to be on chain as
I think the potential we have in Japan and then, yeah, gradually, enterprise are also
willing to work with these startups to, you know, enter into the new new technology.
So I think from like this year next year, we could have more experience from the let's
be, you know, big enterprise and also more, you know, new IPs lighting as well.
Amazing, yeah, I'm excited to see all the news coming out from the Japan side as well.
And because it affects, yeah, which IPs too can be more comfortable dipping their toes
into the web three waters.
And I think we all stand to benefit as consumers, if Japanese IPs, you know, jump in further.
I think the top 10, I don't know how many are Japanese, but pretty sure there's a lot.
Great storytelling.
Well, thank you so much.
Again, I maybe have any other questions here.
I got some more.
I can go on all day, but.
On that note, the last question, I'm just curious if any of you in terms of regulation
in Japan, we know they're kind of a trendsetter in that regard, and I'm just wondering what
your overall thoughts are and whether you think that Japan could be setting some examples
these days for other nations and countries in terms of web three.
Cool, so I think one of the regulations we have, I mean, very advanced regulation is
about the stable coin.
I think we have, I mean, I think last June, so around six months ago, seven months ago,
we have a very clear guideline about stable coin, how we can issue it in Japan, and how
we can use it or how it can be regulated as well.
So yeah, those kind of not only just, you know, NFTs or like crypto exchange, like stable
coin is already in the, how to go, we have a very clear guideline as well.
So I think, gradually, we start to have those kind of clear guidelines.
So if, you know, we can easily highlight or we can easily check it up.
So I think that can happen.
And also, I think, around two weeks ago, the Dow Association also launched around two weeks
ago as well.
So I think these kind of sectors between political side and also the, like, economical side,
so I don't know how to say, like, you know, companies or those kind of stuff happening
So yeah, I think if these kind of discussion between political side and the business side
can be really good guidance for other nations as well.
It's good to have regulatory clarity, for sure.
And it's nice to see that Japan is setting some examples there for others.
Does anyone else have anything to touch on that topic?
Can I share one thing for the audience today?
You sure can.
So, yeah, so one thing is, I just pinned this in this space, but yeah, for this, our participants,
for this AMA, we will give away, like, a 10-allow list for the 10 lucky winners.
So how to join this, you just need to submit the form we have, so, and then you could have
a chance to win the allow list.
So if you win allow list, you will get, like, a 10% discount for that experience.
Also, you could purchase it earlier than the public sale.
So the submission deadline is around 24 hours.
So please submit it.
And then the schedule for the sales is for Premium Sake, we have a public sale on March
But for other five experience, it will be around, yeah, March 24th.
So yeah, please check it out in the website, more details, and you can help fill the Japanese
culture in the website as well.
I'm looking forward to signing up for that.
So if you don't mind just sharing a link, we'll drop it in the chat here for the space
so that everybody will have access.
And yeah, sign up for the white list, everyone, after the space.
And Rams, do you have any other questions before I open this up to the audience?
For myself, with the marketplace, wearable, James, we know that Japan has a lot to offer.
And that's just, you know, one hot spot right now for Web 3 that's bubbling, including the
support from, you know, just on the governmental side as well, slowly growing to be being adopted.
I just wanted to ask, like, that region specifically, you know, Japan, the eastern side, what kind
of growth or how you're approaching that region and that kind of growth there, especially
in this kind of field and the realm you're working on.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think we're really excited about what areas like Japan are doing in the Web 3 space.
And we, you know, very much so, I think sometimes Western users get kind of siloed in thinking
that they are the forefront of the technology.
But I think Japan is a great example of when that's just not the case.
And I know I see your laughing emoji.
I think it's maybe a Western thing to think that they're at the forefront of everything.
Then maybe we won't have to talk about that too much.
But Japan is doing an incredible job of leading in this technology and the innovation they're
bringing to the space.
Not just that, though, like what we've seen over and over again is that, you know, the
Astar community and the Kokuyo community and so many of the communities that are like bubbling
up in Japan that have such passionate, passionate community members.
They show up.
They are there building with these teams.
I think that's a testament to Japan's kind of more like community minded focus, the way
that they are more community minded culture.
They're very much like in mind, they are in mind of others and they collaborate with others.
That's why I think we're seeing such great innovation coming from these teams.
And it's because of this power of community.
And so for us at Rarible, like we've been built by the power of community.
Community is our like lifeblood.
It's our heart and soul.
Our community, we wouldn't be around.
I think that's true of everyone, but especially for Rarible.
And we are so excited to continue to provide new innovation and new safe trading and marketplace
environments for these users to come in and experience kind of a new a new wave of kind
of innovation that is happening through teams like Astar and teams like Kokuyo.
And so this is rambling for me just to say like we're very excited for what's happening
in Japan.
And also we are very keen on learning from these incredible builders and learning alongside
them and joining them in this continued work that we all are doing in the blockchain as
we're trying to continue to advance what this technology does.
In a lot of ways, we just have a lot of excitement about it.
Just to put it very simply, we're really excited.
And I think we're anticipating just a lot of like, I can't even put it to words, but
a lot of community involvement and community engagement that we really just can't wait
to tap into.
Thank you so much, James.
Yeah, I think right there, you mentioned the examples being put forth.
By Japanese teams like Beyond Club and Kokuyo, I think we should include them in our focus
and in areas that are building and take into account what they're doing and build on top
You know, potato chip companies, big ones in Japan, launching NFTs via QR codes on their
bags of potato chips.
And then evolving that NFT, if you collect more of those bags of potato chips, those
are real life examples that already existed last year.
So let's take a look at them, build upon them, and think of new ideas and then support it,
We're all in this together overall.
Thanks again, James, Kokuyo, and Ed, lovely speaking with you all and just getting all
your thoughts on this.
Can I just say to you, if you're here in this space and you're listening to this conversation,
I know we're all rambling and we're all really excited.
It's because we're building in the industry.
We work in it every day.
We maybe get a little too excited and start rambling, but you're here and you're early
and you're building right alongside us.
If you're part of the community, you're just as important as every dev that's on the team
and every marketing manager that's on the team.
You are a vital part of what it is to make these communities and these projects and these
blockchains and marketplaces and every layer of Web3 successful.
So thank you all for being here and let's keep going.
Let's fucking go.
LFG, let's go.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Well said, James.
So before we wrap up our space here, I wonder if you can tell us how to get started with
Kokuyo NFT, Yuki.
Yeah, thanks.
So yeah, as I said earlier, yeah, please submit the form so you can have a chance to get the
allow list.
We give away 10 allow list from this, I mean, this MA, but not only that, yeah, please check
out our website and also try to freemen the origami NFT.
I think that will give you the like an exciting experience.
So you can feel the vibe of Japanese culture as well.
We're looking forward to that.
So any last thoughts before we wrap up our space?
I mean, if I can ask a question, I don't mind.
Oh, Dustin, go ahead from DSTOR.
A question for James.
So with wearable bringing in real world assets, how do you guys tackle attestation of these
verifiable assets?
I'm so sorry.
It broke up kind of midway for me there.
And I only caught the last portion of your question.
Can you just repeat it one more time?
How's my audio?
It's good?
Yeah, it's good now.
It's good.
Better now.
Okay, cool.
So yeah, my question is, how do you guys verify these assets?
I believe you did mention a little bit about attestation.
I'm just curious on how do you prove that these assets are from its origin?
Yeah, that's such a great question.
And I think it's very important, especially when you bring in real world assets, right?
Like the risk of someone making a fake derivative of your PFP is a very low risk, right?
You're not losing any real world asset.
But if someone rips off your real world asset and cashes in on your experience, now not
only have you lost the value of the NFT and what you purchased, but you've also lost
out on the experience that you were hoping for.
What's interesting is that the blockchain, it's so funny because it's the meme that floats
around the space, but blockchain fixes that.
Because of provenance, because of the way that the blockchain works, we are verifying
these not just by image, not just by look, but also by contract address and by blockchain
transactions.
And if a wallet is compromised, for example, and assets are stolen, those can get marked
as flagged as stolen so that those don't get used in nefarious ways or get stolen or resold
because they were stolen.
And so there are ways that I think like we've seen the very tip of the iceberg of what provenance
can mean and what attestation of ownership can mean for like art and PFPs.
But I think we're going to see that use case and that value proposition becomes so much
more powerful when you look at the way that these memberships and these royalty points
and you know, even something as simple, I think it was Ed who said something about like
having all these punch cards from all the coffee shops, like those, you could lose it
because they fall out of your pocket, but what if they're not falling out of your pocket?
What if it's permanently attached to your digital identity?
Then there's something there that says, okay, my digital identity, the wallet that I carry,
the version of me that lives online is attached to the things that I own.
There's something really powerful there.
And it's a conversation we talk about a lot at Rarible, that decentralization of ownership,
the democratization of ownership in a world where increasingly we own less and less of
our things.
This becomes a pinnacle selling point of why blockchain technology is very important for
the future of our society.
So it's a great question.
I'm almost on the soapbox that I'm going to step back off of, but I'm very excited about
that kind of question because that is a real value add for like why NFTs?
That's a really good question.
That's why.
Definitely.
Thank you so much for that, Dustin.
A great question to wrap up the space.
Well, that about does it.
So thanks, everyone, for joining us today and we'll see you around for the next AMA.
Don't forget to Minjafri Origami NFT with Kokio NFT.
Thanks, everyone.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you for having us.
Be sure to follow everyone on the space.