By promoting over one million wallets at the Expo, the foundational wallet infrastructure, which was the 'missing piece' in Japan's Web3.0, was established. This laid the groundwork for financial infrastructure under significant investment.
Stablecoins, with their programmability and composability, enable automated payments and low-cost financial services through AI. The aim is to expand as a new financial infrastructure covering both retail and wholesale sectors.
The success of Web3.0 ventures depends on clear objective setting, which determines whether they end as mere PoCs. Moving forward, the integration of AI agents and blockchain will create a new economic sphere where payments and financial experiences blend seamlessly into daily life.
──The digital wallet rollout at last year's Expo was impressive. Could you share your thoughts on the series of service deployments?
Yoshihiro Yoshida (hereafter, Yoshida): Thank you. This project has been in motion since 2023. After considering what the missing piece in Japan's Web3.0 infrastructure was, we identified the slow adoption of wallets as a challenge.
At that time, we had the opportunity to sponsor the Expo and proposed, "Let us handle the wallets." It was a project that put the company's fate on the line, with an investment exceeding 1 billion yen, so rather than feeling successful, I feel relieved.