Japan Blockchain Association

The Japan Blockchain Assocation (JBA) was only established in mid-April as a replacement for the former Japan Association of Digital Asset (JADA), which has been active in the industry since July 2014. JBA has two divisions: one dealing with virtual currency, and the other with blockchain technologies in general. The former group — which concerns consumer, tax and financial regulatory issues — includes bitcoin exchanges such as Kraken, bitFlyer and Coincheck. The latter group — which concerns definition and policy proposals for non-currency blockchain technology — includes Microsoft Japan, payments gateway GMO Internet Group, blockchain cloud computing platform Orb and blockchain identity startup Soramitsu.