Which well-known Crypto companies are based in Japan and what is their scale?

Original author: AB Kuai.Dong, Skyland Fund Ambassador

In the wave of Crypto going overseas, due to the cheap exchange rate, low threshold for work visas, and easy to obtain permanent residency, many Crypto project parties and exchanges have set up offices in Japan in the past year as offshore offices to serve the global market. This year is also the year when Tokyo, Osaka and other places become special financial zones, and the policy of obtaining permanent residency through investment has officially entered the countdown.

So what are the well-known teams based in Japan? What about their size and number of people? This article will sort out the details.

Top-level team of 100 people

· Binance acquired the Japanese compliant exchange SEBC through a backdoor listing in 2022, and changed its name to Binance Japan in late 2023, officially launching Japan's compliant business. In the same year, it established cooperation with Japan's leading bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Bank, and planned to issue Japanese yen stablecoins. Affected by the tightening of Singapore's work visas and US regulatory policies in 2023, some employees who did not obtain overseas work visas were assigned to Binance Japan. Since then, Binance's Tokyo office has begun a large-scale expansion.

· BitFlyer is a leading compliant exchange in Japan. In the early days of the company, its shareholders were basically financial chaebols such as Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, Hoei Bank, and Mitsubishi UFJ. This year, the company acquired the bankrupt FTX Japan subsidiary, further consolidating its position as a leading compliant exchange in Japan. Although BitFlyer started in Japan, it has also been seeking international expansion.

· Coincheck is a first-tier exchange in Japan, with a higher frequency of listing than its Japanese counterparts. It has publicly cooperated with Animoca Brands and Circle. In May of this year, the company plans to seek a listing on the Nasdaq in the United States through SPAC.

· Bitbank is one of the few exchanges in Japan that supports overseas companies to register and open accounts, and provides customer service support in Chinese and English. In 22 years, the company invested in Oasys, a Japanese game public chain, and established cooperation with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

· SBI Crypto is a subsidiary of SBI, a leading Japanese brokerage firm. In the past few years, the company has acquired and merged a number of Crypto companies and operates Bitcoin and Litecoin mining pools. The team is currently quite diverse, with employees from China, the United States, and Australia.

Small and medium-sized teams of dozens of people

· Cardano is the Japanese team's project with the highest market value on CMC. It has two co-founders who have been working and living in Japan for a long time. The team was also one of the earliest projects to receive Japanese dividends during the ICO boom of the year. The ADA it issued was once considered by the Japanese community to be the Japanese version of Ethereum. The Japanese team is still operating and has daily offline activities around it.

· Backpack is an exchange and multi-chain wallet supported by the Multicoin and Solana Foundations. It has a co-founder who leads the product technology department and conducts R&D and operations of Backpack in its office in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The team is still recruiting and expanding.

· B2C2 is an international liquidity market maker with hundreds of people around the world, including dozens of people in the Tokyo office. The company was once the largest liquidity provider of XRP, and has also provided liquidity market making services for well-known projects such as Blockdaemon and Stakewise.

· Cointelegraph Japan is an internationally renowned top Crypto media, with an independent team in Tokyo. The Japanese team also manages Cointelegraph's Chinese, Indonesian and Korean stations.

· MEXC is a well-known old exchange in the circle - Matcha. It has an office in Japan, which mainly meets the operational service needs of the Asian time zone. It is the second offshore office besides Malaysia.

· Amber Japan is the Japanese subsidiary of market maker Amber, with a registered capital of 800 million yen. At its peak, the company acquired DeCurret, which was registered with the Financial Services Agency, and completed local compliance work. Later, when the parent company was rumored to be in debt, it was considered for sale. It is currently rumored that the acquisition has been completed by a Japanese consortium.

· Oasys is a Layer1 public chain, which has received investment support from NGC, Kucoin, and Jump. It has established cooperative relationships with many well-known Japanese game companies to help the company's IP issue NFTs and game props on the blockchain.

· AStar is a long-established public chain project in Japan. It has received investments from Polychain, Coinbase, and Binance. This year, it cooperated with Sony to establish a Crypto accelerator and has now turned to the zkEVM track.

· Jasmy is an earlier Crypto + IoT project in Japan. It is also one of the few Japanese projects whose tokens are listed on Binance and Coinbase. It is currently ranked 56th in the world in terms of market value. Many Chinese investors are also paying attention to it. It has now turned to the DePIN track.

· CoinPost is a leading local Crypto media in Japan. Its annual webX summit has a great influence.

· Double jump is the parent company of Oasys. It has incubated and launched well-known IP NFT projects such as "Captain Tsubasa" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

A small team of a few to a dozen people

· Hashed is the largest Crypto fund in South Korea, but it also has a research group in Japan. Every year, it will hold the Tokyo Blockchain Leaders Summit in cooperation with other companies. The summit will invite many founders who have been invested by Hashed to participate.

· Skyland is the largest Crypto fund registered with the Financial Services Agency in Japan. It is also one of the few Japanese institutions that actively invest in Chinese projects. It has invested in Taiko, Merlin, Bitlayer, Unisat, BitSmiley and other well-known projects in China.

· IVC is a global seed fund in Japan. Its full name is Infinity Ventures Crypto. It is the same company as the operator of the Kyoto IVS Summit and has invested in well-known projects such as YGG, Mirror, and Scroll.

· Azuki is an internationally renowned NFT project. It has a dedicated artist studio in Japan that provides design and local operations for Azuki. It is also a blue-chip NFT project known to many Japanese investors.

· Mask Network is a Crypto project that entered Japan earlier in the Chinese-speaking world. It has a high reputation among its peers in Japan. Among them, 0xCryptoBaby, a well-known community KOL in Japan, is also a member of Mask. Mask is the main sponsor of the annual international conferences related to Japan.

· OneKey is an open source wallet service provider, which has received investments from Dragonfly, Coinbase, and Framework. The founder moved to Japan earlier, and there are also relevant members responsible for business expansion in Japan.

· Intmax is a Layer2 public chain, which has received investments from SNZ, Hashkey, and Mask. The founder, Mai Fujimoto, is a well-known figure in the Japanese Crypto circle. Because she introduced Bitcoin technology and value in Japan in her early years, she was called Miss Bitcoin by the media.

· Myshell is an AI consumer layer project, which has received investments from Dragonfly, OKX, and Folius. Currently, some core members have set up companies and offices in Japan.

· KEKKAI is a chain security testing company that has received investment from Bixin, Skyland, and Mask. Its founder is a core member of the Waseda University Blockchain Association and has helped many internationally renowned projects to complete hackathons in Japan.

· TON is a public chain built by Telegram. It has a dedicated ambassador and ecological offline office in Tokyo. In the previous Tokyo roadshow, 5 Japanese project teams based on TON presented and shared with the outside world.

· Ripple is a leading Crypto project that developed the Japanese market earlier. It has a joint venture with SBI and operates in Japan. The main liquidity provider of the early currency was a market-making team from Japan.

· Animoca Japan is the Japanese subsidiary of Animoca, which has received investments from West Japan Railway and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. They are shareholders of Apricot Planet, a Japanese game union, and have established cooperative relations with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. and KDDI.

· YGG Japan is an independent Japanese company of YGG, which has received investments from Animoca, Gate, and IVC. It has planned and held many offline blockchain games in Japan and has a certain influence.

· BYTOM is a well-known Bytom chain in the Chinese-speaking world. It officially landed in Tokyo this year and opened a Tokyo office. It is currently transforming to AI.

· Aki is a consumer task platform that has received investments from Oak, Mask, and CatcherVC. Before issuing the coin, the team had moved to Japan and established a Tokyo office.

· MyToken is a very senior soft wallet company in the industry. Its founders and core members have moved to Tokyo and gradually established a Tokyo office.

· Gate is a very senior Crypto exchange in the industry. It has a global team in Japan for the Asia-Pacific time zone and has established a Tokyo office.

· OKCoin is OKX's compliance station in Japan. It has an Asian time zone team in Japan that supports global station listings and legal matters, and has established a Tokyo office.

· Atomicals Market is the largest Bitcoin ARC20 trading market. Its founder has lived in Tokyo for a long time and is a senior blockchain technology developer in the Tokyo Chinese community.

In addition to the above, there are dozens of unknown global Crypto companies in Japan, which mainly provide offshore operations, development outsourcing, and Japanese market docking for projects. I hope the above content can help you understand the latest situation of the Japanese Crypto market. Thank you for reading.