How Taraxa came to co-author a book with Makoto Yano, president of Japan’s RIETI

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Taraxa Project

3 min readApr 14, 2021

Preface

Since the English version of the book, “Blockchain and Crypto Currency” (it’s free to download!) has become available on major ecommerce platforms such as Amazon and Taobo, where I have co-written two chapters, we have received a large number of inquiries regarding the origins of the book. It’s actually a pretty interesting story, so I decided to do a quick lookback.

“METI is interested in blockchain”

Soon after Taraxa was founded in 2018, one of our earliest angel investors, Mr. Mamoru Taniya, informed us that Japan’s Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry is interested in learning more about blockchain. Specifically, it was the President of the research arm of METI, RIETI (Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry), Professor Makoto Yano who wanted to gather a group of industry experts to discuss this emerging technology.

I was very honored to have received a formal invitation to join this small discussion group, representing Taraxa. I had the opportunity to meet many thought leaders and entrepreneurs from not just Japan’s blockchain community, but also leading academics in law, economics, and cryptography. It was an eye-opening experience.

Discussions turned into a book, then a symposium

Yano-san had originally intended to have a few small discussions to help RIETI learn about blockchain. However, after a few discussions, he felt that blockchain technology, especially the vision laid out by Taraxa, could greatly benefit Japan’s society at large, and that this knowledge needs to be more widely promulgated. This called for a more rigorous and systematic approach.

First, the informal discussions were extended and the groups met on a regular basis throughout 2018 and much of 2019. Next, notes from the discussions were meticulously compiled and edited into a manuscript and turned into a book titled “Next Blockchain”, which was published in September of 2019 to all major bookstores in Japan. Finally, to ensure that the book received the proper attention, RIETI put together the very first blockchain symposium sponsored by the Japanese government on October 7, 2019.

The symposium was a huge success, with keynotes from Japanese government officials, leaders from industry and media, pioneers in blockchain technology, and yours truly. It was attended by over 400 business leaders and government officials at Nikkei Hall.

Taraxa is very fortunate and honored to have been part of this historic event, and thankful for all of our investors, partners, and community supporters in Japan that made it all happen. There’ll be a lot more to come!

Stay tuned.

How Taraxa came to co-author a book with Makoto Yano, president of Japan’s RIETI

Written by Steven Pu