Kei Oda is the head of Japan and the Asia-Pacific region for Quantstamp, a Web3 security firm that audits smart contracts and develops blockchain security solutions.
Kei spent 16 years trading bonds at Goldman Sachs before stumbling into cryptocurrencies out of boredom. He tells Magazine he was induced by the ability to trade Bitcoin and other assets around the clock.
He has since fallen down the rabbit hole, even finding a job in the industry.
1. How did you get involved in crypto?
So, I was actually a bond trader for 16 years before joining crypto.
You know, we used to talk about Bitcoin when I was still trading bonds. I didn’t really understand it or believe in it, to be honest, but when I left my job in 2016 and tried to get into the startup space, what dawned on me once I left was that, having been a trader, you do have a long-term focus, but you also are very, very short-term in terms of how you trade, what you do day to day, minute to minute, and what ended up happening was, I would get bored very easily.
Essentially, my attention span became like a goldfish, and that was what working in finance kind of did to me. And so, I started trading Bitcoin.
Initially, it was simply to pass the time. And then, once I started researching Bitcoin, obviously, I thought the value proposition was extremely compelling.
And as part of that journey, I of course fell down the rabbit hole and started looking at crypto in general and specific assets like Ethereum, and it just sounded like a crazy, crazy proposition. You know, if it succeeds, obviously we’re talking about something that could be game-changing.
2. What do you think of the current Japanese crypto ecosystem?
I think that Japan has a pretty vibrant ecosystem, especially right now. It’s taken a while, but if you look at the trajectory of what Japan has gone through as a whole (the Mt.Gox and CoinCheck hacks, etc.), it has become very progressive.
In one sense, you know, allowing Bitcoin to be kind of used as currency, not obviously as an official currency or government currency, but it is an accepted payment method, and it’s actually legal to use it.
I think another kind of sector that seems to be quite exciting, at least for Japanese financial firms, is security tokens. I think that’s something that people are looking at. Security tokens globally — I don’t really hear that much about, [but] there are quite a few companies looking at them here in Japan.
It almost feels like the Japanese crypto blockchain ecosystem has broken off a little bit from the rest of the world, or at least the cycles seem to be a little bit displaced in the sense that we’re starting to see very good interest and decent activity from big companies in Japan. Whereas I think that that probably happened a little bit earlier in other markets and has now kind of subsided.
3. What has held the Japanese crypto scene back?
I think at the bottom of it all is taxation. Taxation is still not very friendly here in Japan.
What the old regulation used to be is that if your Japanese startup issued a token here in Japan and you sold half of it to Japanese investors or the Japanese community, then you would have to pay tax on the revenue that you realized by selling tokens. But you would also have to pay tax on the 50% that you hadn’t sold.
It’s even worse for personal taxes. In Japan, profits on crypto trading are taxed as extra-ordinary income, which can be as much as 55%. It’s not super friendly.
Now, if you compare that to Singapore, the basic tax rate is much, much lower at around 20% or something. Hong Kong, I think, is something similar. Dubai obviously has zero income tax. So, you’re talking about a pretty big difference financially for startup founders and entrepreneurs.
4. Do you think more companies will start setting up in Japan instead of opting for other Asian hubs?
The Japanese government is trying to be very progressive and forward-thinking about Web3.
They’re trying to be very active in getting talent to stay in Japan and also to come to Japan.
For example, the government is planning digital nomad visas. And I think that is going to be great for people who earn in other currencies and come to Japan, just because the yen has become so much more attractive (weakening against the United States dollar).
Japan is also attractive because there is a big market here, and there is a big market size that startups can capture here.
The Japanese crypto scene is quite active. However, what I find is that, when you go to a Japanese meet-up, there is a long presentation that you have to sit through. And at the end, they give you five to 10 minutes to try and network.
But you know — excuse my language — it’s kind of a shitshow.
So, what I did was help to create an event [Tokyo Blockchain Night] where there’s no presentation — no one’s trying to sell anything.
It’s simply like-minded people being able to have a drink and talk about crypto and look for investors, engineers, etc., or just make friends.
I think it’s something that helps people and goes along with the whole kind of ethos we have at Quantstamp, which is that we help people and pay it forward, and hopefully, something comes back to us.
6. How did contagion from collapses like FTX impact the Japanese market?
The way FTX essentially blew up is kind of interesting in that FTX had a Japanese subsidiary; they bought a Japanese exchange called Liquid.
And because the regulations around asset custody in Japan were much stricter, FTX Japan wasn’t able to commingle funds or anything like that. So, actually, the Japanese entity was fully liquid and solvent. To the point where, if you were a Japanese customer of FTX, you essentially either have or will get all of your money back.
Whereas if you’re a client of FTX International, I don’t know what the update is there, but it’s not looking that promising.
I think the Japanese regulations that came in after the CoinCheck hack were probably much more strict than other jurisdictions; however, as a result of that, we’re now seeing an uptick in Japanese activity, to the point where the MUFG, the world’s biggest banking conglomerate in Japan, is going to launch stablecoins.
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Brian Quarmby
Brian Quarmby discovered crypto in 2013 and instantly fell in love with the idea of decentralization. Brian has since lived and worked Asia and returned to Melbourne in late 2019. Brian is a lover of sport and art and is bullish on the potential for NFTs to transform artists lives in the near future.
Sir Keir Starmer needs to choose between parents who want stronger action to tackle harmful content on children’s phones, or the “tech bros” who are resisting changes to their platforms, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Speaking to Beth Rigby on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Labour peer noted that the prime minister met with the creators of hit Netflix drama Adolescence to discuss safety on social media, but she questioned if he is going to take action to “stop the tech companies allowing this sort of stuff” on their platforms where children can access it.
Sir Keir hosted a roundtable on Monday with Adolescence co-writer Jack Thorne and producer Jo Johnson to discuss issues raised in the series, which centres on a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a young girl, and the rise of incel culture.
The aim was to discuss how to prevent young boys being dragged into a “whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”, and the prime minister said the four-part series raises questions about how to keep young people safe from technology.
Sir Keir has backed calls for the four-part drama to be shown in all schools across the country, but Baroness Harman questioned what is going to be achieved by having young people simply watch the show.
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Sir Keir Starmer held a roundtable with the creators of the Adolescence TV drama.
“Two questions were raised [for me],” she said. ” Firstly – after they’ve watched it, what is going to be the discussion afterwards?
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“And secondly, is he going to act to stop the tech companies allowing this sort of stuff to go online into smartphones without protection of children?
“Because if the tech companies wanted to do this, they could actually protect children. They can do everything they want with their tech.”
She acknowledged there are “very big public policy challenges” in this area, but added of the prime minister: “Is he going to side with parents who are terrified and want this content off their children’s phones, or is he going to accept the tech bros’ resistance to having to make changes?”
The Labour peer backed the Conservative Party’s call for a ban on smartphones in schools to be mandated from Westminster, saying it would “enable all schools not to have a discussion with their parents or to battle it out, but just to say, this is the ruling” from central government, which Ofsted would then enforce.
“I’m sensitive to the idea that we shouldn’t constantly be telling schools what to do,” she continued. “And they’ve got a lot of common sense and a lot of professional experience, and they should have as much autonomy as possible.
“But perhaps it’s easier for them if it’s done top down.”
Baroness Harman also questioned the speed with which parliament is actually able to legislate to deal with the very rapid development of new technologies, and posits that it could “change its processes to be able to legislate in real time”.
She suggested that a “powerful select committee” of MPs could be established to do that, because “otherwise we talk about it, and then we’re not able to legislate for 10 years – by which time that problem has really set in, and we’ve got a whole load more problems”.
On the podcast, the trio also discussed the 10% tariffs imposed on the UK by Donald Trump and the government’s efforts to strike a trade deal with the US to mitigate the impact of the levy.
The government has refused to rule out scrapping the Digital Services Tax, a 2% levy on tech giants’ revenues in the UK, as part of the negotiations with the Trump administration – a move Baroness Harman said would be “very heartbreaking”.
A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.
Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).
April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER
The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.
Bakkt disclosed on March 17 that Bank of America and Webull did not intend to renew their agreements with the firm ending in 2025. The announcement likely contributed to the company’s share price falling more than 27% in the following 24 hours. The investors allege Bakkt “misrepresented the stability and/or diversity of its crypto services revenue” and failed to disclose that this revenue was “substantially dependent” on Webull’s contract.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” said the suit.
Other law offices said they were investigating Bakkt for securities law violations, suggesting additional class-action lawsuits may be in the works. Cointelegraph contacted Bakkt for a comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.