Kim Seo-joon: "Japan, the sleeping lion of the Web3 market… Stablecoins and animation are key" [BLS Tokyo 2025]

Kim Seo-joon, CEO of Hashed, emphasized the potential of the Japanese Web3 market. He stated, "Japan is like a sleeping lion in the Web3 market," and added, "Yen-based stablecoins and animation intellectual property (IP) are the two key opportunities Japan possesses."

At the Blockchain Leaders Summit Tokyo 2025 (BLS Tokyo 2025) in Tokyo, Japan, on the 27th, Kim said, "The yen is a global currency that plays an important role in the world’s financial infrastructure," and predicted, "With regulations for stablecoins in place and their issuance imminent, yen stablecoins will have tremendous impact."

He explained, "Stablecoins are a key product in the Web3 market that go beyond serving as simple payment tools," and "Yen stablecoins will validate smart contract-based platforms and give rise to a variety of applications."

He also predicted that the combination of the Japanese animation market and Web3 will create enormous opportunities. Kim remarked, "I recently visited China, and Japanese animation products were everywhere in the department stores," highlighting, "This shows the global competitiveness of Japanese animation IP."

He continued, "Japanese animation IP is already a global product. If blockchain technology is combined with it, it will become a new growth driver."

He also introduced a Korean example. Kim explained, "Modhaus, invested in by Hashed, enabled fans of the K-pop girl group tripleS to decide on album title tracks or member participation by voting through tokenized governance," and noted, "This is a good example of using blockchain to connect fandom and content."

Kim suggested that such a structure could be applied to Japanese animation fandom as well. He predicted, "The content market will evolve into a prosumer—where producers and fans merge—market, in which consumers participate in or directly become part of product development, production, and distribution," and added, "If blockchain technology is applied to popular animation, giving fandom the opportunity to directly participate in production, accessibility and loyalty will be greatly enhanced."

He further stated, "The most important thing in this process is not to put blockchain technology at the forefront," adding, "Elements like private keys and wallets should be hidden, and the user experience should feel similar to traditional Web2 platforms."

Tokyo=Hwang Doo-hyun, Bloomingbit journalist cow5361@bloomingbit.io