APCU News Letter, Series “Politics and Currencies in the Blockchain Era”

◇Looking ahead to the blockchain era～the new virtual currency “Stellar”

The founder of “Mt. Gox”, the private exchange for the virtual currency “Bitcoin”, has launched a new virtual currency system called “Stellar”.

The new virtual currency “Stellar” has begun operations at the end of July, and it is already very popular with more than 500,000 accounts established around the world in Japan, U.S. and Europe.

By the way, “Mt. Gox” is known as it went bankrupt with aggregate liabilities of around JPY 6.5 billion, as almost all of its virtual currency “bitcoins” on the internet were lost due to illegal access by abuse of a system defect. In February, it filed for civil rehabilitation to the Tokyo District Court but the application was turned down in April, and the company shifted to bankruptcy procedures when the company gave up rehabilitation. At the creditors’ meeting held in July, the bankruptcy trustee reported that it had secured approximately 200,000 bitcoins and deposits of JPY 698 million , however, in the end, it became clear that the 750,000 bitcoins held by customers and deposits received at time of purchase of approximately JPY 2.8 billion were lost.

Even though “Mt. Gox” has lost credibility, the new virtual currency system “Stellar” launched by the founder of “Mt. Gox” is beginning to become popular.

The selling point of the new virtual currency “Stellar” is emphasis on the affinity with cash currencies such as the yen and dollar, and that it will aim for increased convenience in remittances and settlement.

We have yet to see whether the founder of “Mt. Gox” will succeed in cleaning up his   bad reputation.