DAOs enter Japan

Rage Comment : The DAO crowdfunding project has ended, and the specific investment project has not yet been determined; the controversy over DAO has not subsided, but Japan is ready to welcome this novel concept. Currently, Coincheck, the largest Bitcoin exchange in Japan, has begun to support DAO tokens in Japan. However, Kagayaki Kawabata, head of business development at Coincheck, pointed out that the popularity of cryptocurrency among the general public in Japan is not high, and even less is known about DAO. However, large companies and banks are still interested, and as long as DAO is a project, Japan's huge capital market will be open to it. At present, this unprecedented new concept still has many unresolved mysteries, and Coincheck said it will keep a close eye on the specific progress.

Translation: Annie_Xu

Coincheck supported the DAO token’s entry into the Japanese market, and Kagayaki Kawabata, Coincheck’s Head of Business Development for Japan, talked to us about the future of DAO in the Land of the Rising Sun.

What is DAO

The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a project of Stock.It, a German company that develops smart locks based on Ethereum. The company’s official white paper “Decentralized Autonomous Organization to Automate Governance” details how DAO works.

Basically, The DAO is a way to create a venture capital fund using blockchain. As the white paper says, "In exchange for Ether, the DAO code creates tokens and sends them to the account of the person who provided the Ether."

DAO tokens represent the voting rights and ownership of the holders, and the token issuance ratio is related to the ether received. The token price will fluctuate, and after the completion of all token issuance and financing, the token ownership can be freely transferred on the Ethereum blockchain.

DAOs enter Japan

By May 27, 2016, DAO crowdfunding exceeded 140 million US dollars, and the latest news is that Japan's Coincheck will support DAO tokens.

Therefore, the reporter interviewed Kagayaki Kawabata, head of business development at Coincheck, hoping to understand the prospects of DAO in Japan and the company's strategy.

Coincheck is the first company in Japan to support the buying and selling of Ethereum, and of course it will also provide DAO-related services.

Kagayaki Kawabata said that DAO has demand in the Japanese market.

“A lot of clients wanted someone to support the DAO, so we started developing a DAO token wallet and buying and selling futures.”

The situation of DAO in Japan

Japan is the world's third largest economy with a GDP of $4.41 trillion. Japan is very enthusiastic about financial technologies such as Bitcoin and blockchain.

We have previously discussed how Japan’s legislative changes could help digital currencies gain legal status.

However, interest in DAOs in Japan is minimal, with Kagayaki Kawabata telling us that the general public is only vaguely aware of cryptocurrencies, but large corporations and banks are showing great interest.

"Even if DAO only completes one project, it will have huge appeal to existing capital and the general public."

Concerns come with new technology

Kagayaki Kawabata said that there has been a lot of controversy recently surrounding the governance of DAOs, and there is currently no benchmark to compare them to.

"DAO has the potential to replace traditional capital and venture capital, but at the same time the concept is too new and we are concerned about whether amateur investors can make legitimate investment decisions. Traditional investment decisions are led by experienced fund managers, and many human factors influence the final decision. When investing in a company or project, it will be affected by the founder's personality, skills, etc. DAO investment decision makers are a group of amateur investors, and all their decision information comes from the website. We are very interested in the practical results of the first decentralized autonomous organization. We will continue to pay attention to the progress of DAO."

Can DAOs change the way businesses operate?

One thing is for sure, no one has used blockchain or other autonomous organizations to invest in companies and protect shareholder rights before.

The existing corporate governance structure is based on private and public laws, so corporate governance is sometimes not done according to the rules, and this has been a problem in business for hundreds of years.

What will happen if technology enables self-management of enterprises, like DAO? Will machines play a more human role?

Kagayaki Kawabata says:

“Decentralized autonomous organizations can become the standard structure for enterprises or any organization. It is also possible that there will be companies without CEOs. Maybe there will be companies like Skynet. We are looking forward to seeing how DAOs change in the next few years.”