The Truth About the "Next-Generation Internet" That Japanese Executives Don't Know: The Impact of the Web 3.0 Revolution

Why is JPMorgan moving 150 trillion yen via blockchain while Japanese banks are still holding study groups?

In 2024, the world's largest investment bank, JPMorgan Chase, made a quiet move.

The bank's blockchain payment infrastructure, "Kinexys"—a platform launched in 2020 under the former name Onyx—processed over 1.5 trillion dollars (approximately 220 trillion yen) in cumulative transactions as of the end of 2024.

Approximately 3 billion dollars (about 450 billion yen) flows through the blockchain every day.

This is not a press release story.
It is a fact that can be confirmed on JPMorgan's official website and through official statements from the company's executives.

Has this figure ever been on the agenda at your company's management meetings?

"Web 3.0 is suspicious," "Crypto assets are just speculation"—while people keep saying that, the world's financial infrastructure is beginning to shift onto the blockchain.

The problem is not a lack of understanding of the technology.
It is a delay in recognizing reality.

[Face Reality] The "Web3 bubble" is over. But the revolution started from there.

In 2021, Silicon Valley was in the midst of a Web3 frenzy.

Google and Meta engineers were moving to crypto startups one after another, NFTs were selling for hundreds of millions of yen, and trillions of yen were flowing into DeFi.

However, in 2022, reality bared its fangs.

The stablecoin Terra collapsed overnight, and the crypto exchange FTX went bankrupt due to massive fraud.

Bitcoin lost 70% of its peak value, and the NFT market shrank to near extinction.

That frenzy was, indeed, a bubble.

But—and this is the core point—you must not confuse the bubble with the technology itself.

The internet bubble also burst in 1999.

And in the 2010s, the monsters known as GAFA were born.

The railroad industry also saw many investors go bankrupt in its first bubble.
But the tracks remained, and they supported the Industrial Revolution.

A report released by KPMG in 2025 asserts this: "Web 3.0 is not experiencing flashy growth, but isquietly beginning to take root as social infrastructure."

The speculative phase is over.
Now, it is the infrastructure phase.

[The Structural Limitations of Web 2.0] Centralization Creates Business Costs

Web 2.0 certainly changed the world over the past 20 years.

Google, Amazon, and Facebook revolutionized information sharing and e-commerce.

However, the price paid for this is the 'oligopoly of data and revenue'.

Platforms monopolize user data and advertising revenue.

Intermediaries collect fees with every transaction.
If a server goes down, the entire service stops.
Content can be deleted based on the judgment of a central administrator.

These are not ethical issues.
They are business cost issues.

International remittances take 3 to 5 days and incur fees of several percent.
Tracking food supply chains takes 7 days, delaying the identification of contaminated ingredients.
Real estate transactions involve vast amounts of paperwork and intermediaries.
Medical data cannot be shared between hospitals, resulting in disadvantages for patients.

Web 3.0 is the technology that attempts tostructurally solvethese inefficiencies.

[The Essence of Web 3.0] The Concept of 'Ownership' Changes Business

What is Web 3.0? Let's organize the definition.

Web 1.0 is the 'read-only' internet.
It was just for browsing websites.

Web 2.0 is the 'read-write' internet.
Users can create content and post it on social media.

Web 3.0 is the 'read-write-own' internet.

Through a decentralized network based on blockchain, users, not platforms, can hold ownership of data.

Transaction records cannot be tampered with.
Value can be transferred without an intermediary.
Smart contracts (self-executing programs) enable the automation of agreements.

This is not a matter of ideology.

It is a matter of the above characteristics leading tothe reduction of corporate costs and the creation of new revenue sources.

[The Reality Told by Data] The Web 3 Market: From Speculation to Real Demand

According to market research firm Straits Research, the global Web3 blockchain market is expected to reach approximately $4.8 billion (about 720 billion yen) in 2024 and grow to approximately $135 billion (about 20 trillion yen) by 2033, with a compound annual growth rate estimated at 44.8% (Straits Research, 2024).

While forecasts from multiple research organizations (IMARC Group, Market.us, etc.) vary in their figures, they all agree that the market is showing high growth at an annual rate of around 40%.

What is important is not the growth rate, but the fact that the quality of growth has changed.

In 2021, NFTs and cryptocurrency speculation drove the market.

However, 2024-2025 is different.

Practical use cases in finance, logistics, healthcare, and manufacturing have begun to drive growth.practical use cases have begun to drive growth.

Technavio (2024) points out that "the Web 3.0 market is shifting from a speculative phase to a phase of building foundational infrastructure and practical application."

[Corporate Case Study 1] JPMorgan: A Blockchain Moving 220 Trillion Yen

JPMorgan Chase launched the blockchain payment infrastructure Onyx (later renamed Kinexys) in 2020, and commercialized inter-institutional payments on the blockchain using JPM Coin (which later evolved into JPMD).

As of the end of 2024, it has processed a cumulative total of over $1.5 trillion (approximately 220 trillion yen) in transactions, with an average of about $3 billion flowing daily (JPMorgan official materials, 2024).

In November 2025, it expanded the functions of JPM Coin and issued dollar-denominated deposit tokens on the Ethereum Layer 2 network "Base."

Collaboration tests with Mastercard and Coinbase have also been completed.

JPMorgan is not "considering entering Web3."

It is already operating one of the largest blockchain payment infrastructures in the world.

[Corporate Case Study 2] Walmart: Food Traceability from 7 Days to 2.2 Seconds

The world's largest retailer, Walmart, has been using IBM's Food Trust platform (based on Hyperledger Fabric) to manage its food supply chain on the blockchain since 2018.

Before implementation, it took an average of 7 days to identify the origin of food when a problem occurred, but after introducing blockchain, it was shortened to 2.2 seconds (Hyperledger Foundation official case study).

Currently, it tracks over 25 items, including mangoes, strawberries, leafy greens, and chicken.

This system functioned during the 2018 E. coli outbreak, allowing for the immediate identification and isolation of contaminated romaine lettuce.

This is not about cost reduction, but infrastructure that protects the lives of consumers.

[Japan's Current Position] The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry Has Begun to Move

It is not as if Japan has been completely without a strategy.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has promoted the "Demonstration Project for Building Digital Public Goods Using Web3.0/Blockchain" and has repeatedly conducted demonstration experiments on the use of blockchain in areas such as content, finance, and logistics.

In 2025, the legal system for stablecoins was established through the amendment of the Payment Services Act, and the regulatory framework was clarified.

Sota Watanabe, who leads the Japan-originated public blockchain "Astar Network," points out that "there is a high affinity between Web3 and Japan's strengths, which are the anime, game, and content industries" (Newsweek Japan, February 2024).

The problem is not the system, the technology, or the talent.It is the speed of executive decision-making.

Companies that move first on the systems established by the government will reap the first-mover advantage.
This is a structure that has been repeated in every technological innovation, not just Web3.

[Industry-Specific Strategies] 5 Areas Japanese Executives Should Start Working On Now

1. [Finance/Payment] Responding to CBDCs and Stablecoins

The Bank of Japan is continuing its demonstration experiments for a digital yen (CBDC).

The Financial Services Agency revised its stablecoin regulatory guidelines in 2024 and established a legal framework.

As the case of JPMorgan shows, payments on the blockchain are not a "future story" but a "current, ongoing reality."

In particular, the reduction of international remittance costs and the improvement of payment speed bring direct cost competitiveness to Japanese companies engaged in import and export.

Measures you can take right now:
Upgrade the consideration of stablecoin support from an "IT department issue" to a "CFO issue."

2. [Manufacturing/Logistics] Supply Chain Transparency

Walmart's food traceability is just the tip of the iceberg. In the manufacturing industry, blockchain is beginning to be used for proof of origin for parts, anti-counterfeiting measures, and the visualization of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) supply chains.

The "quality control" and "commitment to traceability" that Japanese manufacturing prides itself on are inherently highly compatible with blockchain's distributed ledger technology.

Measures you can take right now:
Identify the processes in your own supply chain that require the most "proof of reliability" and plan a pilot demonstration.

3. [Real Estate/Asset Management] The New Trend of RWA Tokenization

"Tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA)" is one of the most important trends in Web3 for 2024-2025.

Technavio (2024) identifies the institutionalization of RWA tokenization as the primary growth driver for the Web3 market. By fractionalizing real estate and making it tradable on the blockchain, previously illiquid asset classes are being unlocked.

Franklin Templeton is already operating a money market fund tokenized on the blockchain. JPMorgan applied for a tokenized government bond fund in May 2026.

Institutional investors have begun to move.

Action you can take now:
Have your legal and finance departments jointly examine the potential for tokenizing company-owned real estate and infrastructure assets.

4. [Healthcare/Pharmaceuticals] Patient Data Sovereignty and Clinical Trial Management

Anti-counterfeiting and supply chain tracking for pharmaceuticals, preventing tampering with clinical trial data, and managing patient medical data—these are use cases where the "tamper resistance" and "decentralized data management" inherent in blockchain function directly.

In Japan, the secondary use of medical data is restricted legally and institutionally, posing the challenge of "secure data sharing with patient consent."

Blockchain-based self-sovereign identity could be one answer to this challenge.

Action you can take now:
Pharmaceutical companies should start with pilot demonstrations of drug traceability. Healthcare institutions should discuss the potential for consortium-based data sharing using blockchain within industry associations.

5. [IT/Entertainment] Web3-ifying Japanese Content

Japanese anime, games, and manga are global IP.

Movements to build new revenue models for this content as NFTs or tokenized digital assets are already emerging from domestic startups (including those funded by 7-Eleven, Ajinomoto, House Foods, etc.) (CoinDesk Japan, August 2024).

Combining the global expansion of content with Web3 is one of the few areas where Japan can leverage its unique competitive advantage.

[3 Traps for Latecomers]

Trap 1: "Wait until you understand it completely before acting"

Web3 technology is evolving daily.
If you wait for complete understanding, you will never be able to act.

Remember how many companies that waited to enter "until they completely understood the Internet" during the Web 2.0 era missed out on first-mover advantages.

The correct approach is to start small and learn by doing.

Trap 2: "Follow after success stories emerge"

Walmart's food traceability was in 2018.
JPMorgan's Kinexys was in 2020.

Successful cases already exist.

'No one has done it yet' is no excuse.

However—you must not jump into it uncritically.

The first priority is to calmly determine whether the use case aligns with your company's challenges.

Trap 3: The short-term thinking that 'blockchain is a cost'

Many executives view the initial costs of pilot demonstrations as 'wasted expense'.

But have you ever calculated how enormous the cost of 'catching up later' will be in a world where JPMorgan has infrastructure that processes 220 trillion yen, while your competitors do not?

[Final Recommendation] Adopt the perspective of 'Web3 as social infrastructure'

As KPMG pointed out, Web 3.0 has entered a stage of 'quiet establishment' rather than a 'flashy revolution'.

In the era when electricity became widespread, companies that were 'considering whether to use electricity' disappeared from the market.

In the era when the internet became widespread, companies that were 'considering the necessity of a website' were eaten by their competitors.

The same thing is happening now with Web 3.0.
However, the speed is much faster.

What Japanese companies need is neither enthusiasm for Web 3.0 as a buzzword nor skeptical observation.

It is the execution capability to calmly evaluate it as 'one of the means to solve business problems' and start using it where it can be applied..

JPMorgan has finished the discussion and is already moving 220 trillion yen.

Is your company still at the stage of holding study meetings?

[References]

Web 3.0/Blockchain Market Data

• Straits Research, 'Web 3.0 Blockchain Market Size, Share & Trends Report' (2024)

• Technavio, 'Web 3.0 Blockchain Market Analysis 2024-2029' (2024)

• IMARC Group, "Web3.0 Blockchain Market Size and Forecast" (2025)

• KPMG Japan, "Web3.0 Trends and Future Outlook: 2025 Edition" (November 2025)

Corporate Case Studies

• JPMorgan Official Website, "Kinexys Digital Payments / JPM Coin" (2024-2025)

• Hyperledger Foundation, "Walmart Case Study: Food Traceability with Hyperledger Fabric" (2025)

• Walmart Official Press Release, "Walmart Food Traceability Initiative" (2018)

Japanese Policies and Case Studies

• Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, "Demonstration Project for Building Digital Public Goods Using Web3.0/Blockchain" (2024)

• Financial Services Agency, "Stablecoin Regulation Guidelines" (2024 Revised Edition)

• CoinDesk Japan, "5 Web3 Startups to Watch in 2024" (August 2024)

• Newsweek Japan, "Interview with Sota Watanabe" (February 2024)

Research and Studies

• WEF & Bain & Company, "Blockchain Technology in Trade Finance" (September 2018) *References to the trade finance sector are based on this report

• Bank of Japan, "Research Report on Central Bank Digital Currency" (2024)