An Era Where Data Replaces Money Has Arrived — Exclusive Interview with Yusuke Narita

With the approval of a Bitcoin spot ETF in the United States, interest in crypto assets seems to be on the rise again. What are your thoughts on crypto assets, Narita-san?

Yusuke Narita (hereinafter, Narita): It's a shady and shady entity (laughs). First of all, I'd like to make it clear that I would never recommend investing in crypto assets (laughs).

However, the fact is that something miraculous is happening. Bitcoin and crypto assets as a whole are the fastest-growing startups or assets in human history. Bitcoin has a market capitalization of about 300 trillion yen 15 years after its birth. Pure gold, high-rise apartments in Tokyo, and Apple stocks are no match for it. Only God knows whether this is a bubble or a revolution.

What's even more surprising is that this is not just an economic revolution or bubble. Rather, it is a social movement to convey an ideological and cultural message. Bitcoin is a movement whose mission is to create a currency without a national centralized administrator. Ethereum had a mission to create a world computer to run a wide range of smart contracts, not just currencies. It is an anarchist movement using digital encryption technology.

It is the actions of the founder that make the principles and mission shine. Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder who made Bitcoin worth 300 trillion yen, not only has not revealed the identities of his/her partners, but has not cashed out any of his/her Bitcoin holdings. He has not made a single penny of profit. This overly forceful action proves that Satoshi Nakamoto's own motivation for his actions is not profit (at least for now). He is probably crazy, so it would be best not to become friends with him (lol).

There is no one else like this. Is there a founding president of a company that has created a trillion yen, not to mention 300 trillion yen, who has not cashed out a single yen of capital gains? I don't know anyone else like that.

By proposing an antithesis to existing economic capital and political power, he has created economic profits that are unprecedented in world history, and yet he has proven through his own actions that those economic profits are irrelevant. This is a case that can only be called miraculous, where social ideology and economic profits are magically combined and highly compatible.

Of course, there is always the possibility that it will explode or evaporate in the future. However, looking at his achievements so far, he is an entrepreneur with the highest profit margin in the history of the world, a revolutionary or activist who caused a shift in values ​​that would not be out of place alongside the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or the Civil Rights Movement, and a scientist and engineer who is likely to be worthy of a Nobel Prize in Economics or a Turing Award (the Nobel Prize in Computer Science).

In that sense, I secretly think that he is a person who has achieved achievements on a different level among living humans. I don't know if he is human (lol). I can't rule out the possibility that he is a piece of code that has traveled back in time from the 22nd century (lol).

But what's strange is that the world doesn't seem to see it that way at all. Only a small minority of people understand the simple and clear fact that "Bitcoin and crypto assets as a whole are the fastest growing startup or asset in the history of mankind." It's fine if the old man at the bar doesn't understand, but I get the impression that even among LDP politicians, the number of people who understand is probably in the single digits. Since most of the Diet members still seem to be living in the 20th century, I think this country is probably sinking.

If you were in an environment where only cryptocurrencies could be used, what kind of project would you start?

Narita: Let's ban cryptocurrencies as well. If we do that, there will be no assets, right? I think the future of the economy is a world where there are no assets whose value can be measured.