Time to Appoint a ‘Minister of Web3’, Says NFT Policy-making Group of Japanese MPs

The ruling Japanese political party’s new non-fungible token (NFT) task force has recommended that the government appoints a “Web 3.0 minister.”

As reported earlier this year,
the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan since
1955, launched an NFT policy task force, officially entitled the “NFT
Policy Review Project Team” (literal translation). The group is headed
by the LDP MP Masaaki Taira, and was created by the former Minister for
Digital Transformation Takuya Hirai.

Per the Japanese media outlet CoinPost and a tweet
from the LDP MP and taskforce member Akihisa Shiozaki, the group of
party members has issued a “white paper” that explains that Japan must
“drive innovation in the Web 3.0 era,” and that doing so will require
the government to earmark the domestic NFT sector as a new growth
engine.

The paper spells out the need to appoint a minister who
would be in charge of Web 3-related matters, as well as “a
cross-ministerial consultation desk.”

Further, the group called on
the government to establish a set of rules to police secondary sales in
the NFT market and allow for the management of cryptoassets
in escrow services under certain conditions.

However, the group also appears to feel that the NFT sector
is currently under-regulated in certain key areas – and wants to address
this issue.

As such, the paper also recommends that the
government end the unchecked issuance and sale of NFTs, and create a
“mechanism for ensuring” the “safety” of investors.

The whitepaper also made mention of developments in the metaverse,
with its authors stating that the government should “take the
initiative” and help Japanese businesses establish global standards in
the space.

The group was critical of the fact that Japanese NFT
firms currently appeared to be “lagging behind” the rest of the world
due to the fact that they are required to navigate a large number of
regulations and tax-related hurdles. 

In a possible boost for the
sector, the group opined that these hurdles were somewhat “excessive,”
and remarked that “promising startup companies” in the space were
choosing to relocate overseas as a result.