The man who single-handedly made Japan an oasis for bitcoin entrepreneurs was holding court with political supporters. The price of admission: ¥10,000.
Squeezed into a tiny private room at a Chinese restaurant in central Tokyo, Mineyuki Fukuda was at the head of the table with a half-dozen techies.
Fukuda started by explaining how he, a second-term Diet member on an obscure subcommittee overseeing electronic payment systems, wound up in charge of Japan's bitcoin policy.