Blockchain Landscape from Japan

ISO/TC307 Japanese Head of DelegatesMr. Masanori Kusunoki

Masanori Kusunoki

CISO-Board / CDO-Board, Yahoo-JapanExecutive Advisor to the Government CIO• Built systems infrastructure for Social Security and

Tax Number System starting from 2016.President, OpenID Foundation JapanAdvisor, Japan Blockchain Association

20 years experience on technical policy, cross organizational identity federation and data communications between public and private sector.

[Challenge]The Japanese Blockchain situation may well be mysterious to foreign persons.

Like that..

Agenda• Introducing the Japanese blockchain

situation and Stakeholders with their Activities.

• From the perspective of • Industry

• Government

• Academia

Industry

Proof of Concept (PoC) in Financial Field• Completed

• Interbank payment among 3 domestic banks (MUFG, Mizuho and SMBC)

• English report Available [1]• Japan Exchange Group

• English report Available [2]• Securities systems in SBI Sumishin Net Bank.

• Ongoing• Joint research project between the Japan Central

Bank and the European Central Bank• PoC from 2016

• Insurance policies in Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance

• PoC from 2016

[1] Report on Practical Experiment of Blockchain Technology in Japanese Domestic Interbank Payment Operation[2] Applicability of Distributed Ledger Technology to Capital Market Infrastructure

Proof of Concept in non-Financial Fields• Ongoing

• Insurance policies in Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance

• PoC from 2016• Agricultual product management by ISID,

Guardtime, SIVIRA• PoC from 2016

Blockchain Services in Action• Identity Management

• Trust Dock by Gaiax• Identity management among various sharing economy

services.

• Planned Release• SBI Ripple Asia has announced interbank

payment system among 47 domestic banks.• will be released in 2017 summer.

• Rakuten Securities, SECOM trust systems, Soramitsu will launch a KYC platform.

• will be launched in Oct, 2017.• Using Iroha technology.

Consortiums to support Blockchain• Two major consortiums dedicated to

Blockchain.• Japan Blockchain Association (JBA)

• Blockchain Collaborative Consortium (BCCC)

Blockchain Technology Development • Miyabi

• Used in a PoC by 3 domestic banks.• 1500 transactions/second with finality.

• Iroha• One of multiple Hyperledger Incubation Projects.• Simple & Fast, Focus on mobile apps.

• Orb• Blocks generated 16sec.• Used in PoC by Sanin-Godo-bank (Virtual Currency)

• Mijin• Used in a PoC by Digipolis; “ACPaaS: Antwerp

City Platform as a Service” in Belgium.

Participation in the Hyperledger Project

Hyperledger Project

https://www.hyperledger.org

Activities in the Hyperledger Project

Japanese companies are committed to the open source collaborativeeffort for standardized platform in the Hyperledger Project hosted by theLinux Foundation.

Hyperledger Iroha: One of theHyperledger Frameworks proposed bySoramitsu and endorsed by Hitachiand NTT Data is designed to be simpleand easy to incorporate into infrastructuralprojects requiring distributed ledgertechnology.

First Hyperledger Meetup in Japanwas held at Fujitsu Laboratory (Kawasaki)on March 16, 2017. It proved there is keeninterest in the project itself and the currentactivities in the blockchain / DLT arena.

Credit: Hitachi Corporation

Government

Regulation and Law • Amendment of statutes such as…

• Banking Act (銀行法 in Japanese) and • Money Lending Business Act (貸金業法 in Japanese)

• Passed in 2016/02 (enforcement from 2017/04)• Defining virtual currency

Development of evaluation axis• Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)

is developing an Evaluation axis.• Purpose of this document is to properly evaluate a

system using blockchain.• Primarily the comparison between existing RDB

technology and a blockchain-powered system.

Academia

Academic initiatives in Japan1. A place of global and neutral academic trust

• Japan is one of the major nations which forms the BSafe.networkBSafe.network: Neutral, stable and sustainable international research test network.

• 4 of 18 university nodes (Keio University, The University of Tokyo, Toho University and Ritsumeikan University in Japan)

• Neutral academic initiatives by universities• Keio University Blockchain Lab• The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science

2. Joint works among academia, industries and societyExamples• Local currency (The University of Tokyo, Aizu University, International University of Japan)• Electronic Voting (Kindai University)

Collaborations

In the Financial Sector• Brand new PoC, now on going.

• Testing Utilization in Capital Market Infrastructure.• Total of 26 financial institutions and related

organizations have joined.

• Report from the Japanese Bankers Association• Proposes to establish an Initiative.

ISO/TC307 Mirror Committee• Over 20 participants from various sectors.• Committee members include…

• ISO/TC68 Japan Mirror committee• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC27 WG2 and WG 5

• From Academia, Information Technology Services Companies, Startups and Institutes.

Acceleration by METI• “IoT Acceleration Labo”

• Held by METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry)• to support collaboration between corporates, institutes,

governments and other stakeholders.

• Activity of the Labo• Test bed demonstration

Support mid and long-term thematic projects by multiple companies

• IoT Project Selection Meeting Support short-term individual projects

• Business matching Organize matching events for companies, research organizations, and

municipalities (local governments).

• Fintech and Blockchain technology are included in this scope.

If you want to go fast, go alone.If you want to go far, go together.

We are planning a Blockchain Conference in Tokyo.

November, 2017.

Photo by Tokyo Metropolitan Park Association; CC BY 4.0 International

Join us!