Japanese port city wants to become the Web3 hub for the country

Through a new collaboration with Astar Japan Labs, the city of Fukuoka aims to become the Web3 hub of the country, akin to Silicon Valley.

In Japan, the city of Fukuoka is looking toward the future of Web3 in its latest partnership with Astar Japan Labs, the company behind Japan’s leading blockchain, the Astar network.

Fukuoka is the country’s second-largest port city and has officially been designated as a National Special Strategic Zone. Now it also plans to become the country’s hub for all things Web3 and crypto.

The Astar Japan Labs partnership will allow both entities to work together on new use cases for Web3 technologies. Fukuoka joins more than 45 companies working with Astar, including Microsoft Japan and Amazon Japan.

According to the announcement, the city wants to attract global, competitive businesses to the area. Representatives from Astar will regularly visit the city to provide education and new use cases both locally and throughout the country in collaboration with local governments.

The mayor of Fukuoka, Soichiro Takashima, also stood behind the city’s new aspirations in Web3:

“We have to do in the context of Web3 what large companies did for the world when Japan was strong.”

Astar Network founder Sota Watanabe likened the city’s attitude toward crypto to those leading the crypto scene abroad. “In the U.S., some cities like Maimi and New York have positive attitudes toward Web3 and crypto. We are going to work closely with Fukuoka City to attract more developers and more entrepreneurs.”

Related: Which countries are the worst for crypto taxation? New study lists top five

This new development comes after a flurry of changes in Japan regarding the crypto and Web3 scene. 

The country has been touted as one of the toughest in terms of crypto regulations, which have the potential to deter its allure. On the other hand, it also recently loosened a set of regulations for listing new currencies on authorized exchanges.

On Oct. 3, the Japanese prime minister said in a speech that the government has plans for major investment in Web3 and metaverse initiatives.

The government has recently utilized nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to reward local authorities.