Exclusive interview with Hideto Kawasaki, Secretary General of the Liberal Democratic Party web3 project team and a member of the House of Representatives

The activities of domestic Web 3.0 companies have changed form and continue to promote innovation.​

An exclusive interview with Hideto Kawasaki, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party's web3 project team, which supports the foundations of startup activities and establishes regulations, and a member of the House of Representatives.

On April 12, the web3 project team (PT/chairperson: Masaaki Taira, member of the House of Representatives) of the Liberal Democratic Party Digital Society Promotion Headquarters formulated and released the “web3 White Paper 2024.” First of all, what is this white paper?

Hideto Kawasaki (hereinafter Kawasaki): We recommend issues that should be addressed immediately to promote Web 3.0, and issues that should be discussed and deepened in anticipation of further development of Web 3.0.

Until now, this PT has formulated the "NFT White Paper" in March 2022 and the "web3 White Paper 2023" in March 2023, and has made recommendations to the government.

Based on these recommendations, improvements are being made to the business and investment environments related to Web 3.0, such as exemption from end-of-year mark-to-market taxation on crypto assets held by corporations from April 2024. Masu.

To be honest, I was surprised to learn that a PT related to Web 3.0, a very advanced technology, has been active since 2022. How was this PT born in the first place?

Kawasaki: I was first elected on October 31, 2021, and as someone from NTT Docomo, I had been keeping an eye on digital policy.

Then, before a meeting of the Digital Society Promotion Headquarters, the head of the headquarters, House of Representatives member Takuya Hirai, and House of Representatives member Masaaki Taira, who would later become the chairman of web3PT, were having a conversation along the lines of, "Do you know what NFTs are?"

It was a time when digital art NFTs and something called collective NFTs were popular, right?

Kawasaki: As you know, Japan is an IP powerhouse and a content powerhouse, so the technology called NFT cannot be ignored even in the context of Cool Japan, and I believe that a thorough understanding and promotion of this movement will lead to the country's growth strategy.

At that time, Representative Hirai told Representative Taira, "Let's form a PT and move forward energetically" and I was listening nearby.

From there, PT was born, and you also participated, is that correct?

Kawasaki: I was interested in digital policy, and when I heard that my colleague Akihisa Shiozaki, a member of the House of Representatives, would be participating in the PT, I wanted to be involved in it, so I approached him.

We also invited Junichi Kanda, a fellow member of the House of Representatives who is strong in the fintech field, to join us, and the NFT Policy Review PT was launched in January 2022.

When you created the NFT PT, how did the people around you react?