Many Japanese may be skeptical about the encrypted currency bitcoin due to last year's Mt. Gox fiasco, but a Singapore-based venture sees a big opportunity in fostering a bitcoin market in Japan.
"When we thought about it, Japan is the third-biggest economy in the world, huge economy, huge market . . . nobody was really tapping that market from a bitcoin perspective" after the fall of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, Mario Gomez Lozada, CEO of Quoine Pte Ltd., said during a recent interview in Tokyo.
The 42-year-old, originally from El Salvador, launched the bitcoin exchange Quoine last June and said that while it might take a number of years, he is confident he can attract Japanese consumers to Quoine, because it was built based on his experiences and knowledge of traditional banking systems.