Last week in Japan, the Astar core team had a team-building camp in Tokyo to share our values, ideas, and plans for our future.
In addition to culture building, we discussed our long-term strategy and milestones. On the last day of the camp, we had a meetup at GMO, the largest internet domain provider in Japan. Located in Shibuya, a major commercial and financial center, where Astar is introducing prominent growth in Japan to the global frontier of web3.
More than 200 people joined our event–the crowd was itching to hear from the team and ready for Astar in the Japanese market. As a Japanese founder, it is a tremendous honor to be recognized as a leading web3 project in Japan. My role with Astar is to make our team available to support Japanese companies to develop commercial use cases and enter Web3. Our presence in Japan is far greater and more widespread than we ever expected. From government officials and entities seeking guidance to prominent blue-chip tech companies, our community here is invigorated by the promise of Astar ushering in Web3.
Japan Blockchain Association, the largest association in terms of member enterprise companies, conducted a survey. Astar was a prominent winner as the #1 Layer 1.
In addition, we established Astar Japan Lab 4 months ago. Astar Japan Lab is a consortium of Japanese companies that learns web3 and utilizes Astar to make web3 use cases together.
We are going to work with big Japanese companies like Dentsu, Hakuhodo, SoftBank, MUFG, and more to push web3 in Japan forward.
Given that Japan is one of the most crypto-legislative countries in the world, establishing a web3 company here was no walk in the park. Building the Astar brand while abiding by local legal standards was challenging, but we are glad our hard work has paid off. Last month, $ASTR finally became a registered cryptocurrency and was listed on Bitbank for Japanese citizens; finally, our token is registered in the whitelist of FSA. This listing has legitimized our standing in the financial markets and has opened doors for Astar Foundation to begin formal collaborations with the most prominent Japanese companies, including GMO, Dentsu Group, Hakuhodo Group, and more.
Astar Camp
In the last two years, we have hired more than 20 people. We are rapidly expanding our team, particularly with a focus on the US market. However, we couldn’t meet in person until now due to recent global travel restrictions. Last week, we finally gathered in Japan and had an opportunity to discuss the future of Astar Network.
In these tumultuous market conditions, it is essential for a company to have a strong foundation and for everyone on the team to reflect a strong culture that understands why we are trying to build the fundamental protocol to realize web3. Our mission is to shape the New World by Connecting the Dots, Blockchains, and People. Multichain is the future, and we need a protocol that connects blockchains to trustless bridges. Our commitment to decentralization and the shared security model is why we chose Polkadot to make a smart contract platform. Our core team now consists of 35+ people. Plus, with our ambassadors and shareholders, we are more than 100+ people on the team. We are building the core characteristics for Astar to succeed in the next cycle.
Astar Event in Japan
During the event, a crowd watched our executive team of Hoon Kim, Valeria Kholostenko, Maarten Henskens and Yusuke Obinana of the Web3 Foundation weigh in on the value of Astar entering a new community–my home. I feel a lot of passion for builders in Japan and I’m excited to deliver on the promise of Astar to my birth country. I want to make the go-to-market chain for Japanese developers and companies.
Astar the Future of Smart Contracts for Multichain on Twitter: "Tonight's Meet the Team at @GMOGroup a room full packed of entrepreneurs excited to meet @WatanabeSota and our core team who are all in Japan for team building! We are thrilled to meet with many parties looking to engage the Japanese market and enter the Web3 via Astar Network pic.twitter.com/fXCaBUFV5q / Twitter"
Tonight's Meet the Team at @GMOGroup a room full packed of entrepreneurs excited to meet @WatanabeSota and our core team who are all in Japan for team building! We are thrilled to meet with many parties looking to engage the Japanese market and enter the Web3 via Astar Network pic.twitter.com/fXCaBUFV5q
Recently, the blockchain landscape in Japan has changed after the government made web3 a part of the national strategy. Though we are a global team, I want to make Astar the gateway for big Japanese enterprises and individual developers to connect to the global market. For Astar to progress in this area, Japan’s infrastructure needs to be mature and more reliable. Day after day I have met with the policy and decision-makers in the county to achieve the above milestones and will continue to do so to bring Japan’s eager community to a world of web3. We continue to keep on building and never stop shipping!
Cheers!
Astar Team Camp in Japan was originally published in Astar Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
