According to a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Tokyo metropolitan area is expected to see an influx of more than 130,000 people by 2024. As a result, regional revitalization is becoming an urgent issue. Amid this, efforts to deepen ties with local communities using completely unconventional approaches are gaining attention.
Many rural areas in Japan currently face common challenges: population decline and aging. As a solution, the government is placing emphasis on creating a "connected population." This refers to people who are neither immigrants (resident population) nor tourists (exchange population), but who have ongoing and diverse connections with their local communities.
NFTs are currently attracting significant attention as a catalyst for creating this connected population on a deeper, broader scale, and with greater intensity. This is because NFTs can design new relationships that are completely different from the one-way information dissemination and one-time experience provision of the past.
NFTs could be issued as digital resident cards, granting holders the right to participate in exclusive communities, or NFTs that are only available in specific locations could be used to encourage local visits. In this way, NFTs are a groundbreaking tool that can permanently record evidence of involvement in a local community on the blockchain, enabling financial support and ongoing connections to be achieved at the same time.
This time, we will introduce two unique, pioneering cases that are using NFTs to create a connected population.