Japan is the global leader in the market development of cryptocurrencies — a global buzzword recently — some of which have seen their values skyrocket over the past year.

As of Jan. 15, yen accounts for 56.2 percent of bitcoin, or BTC, the most popular cryptocurrency, according to coinhills.com. Yen is followed by U.S. dollars at 28.4 percent, while all others account for 15.4 percent. Chinese yuan used to account for the largest until January 2017, but dropped after the state imposed strict restrictions on cryptocurrency trading.

At this time, no statistics are available to show the yen's dominance across all types of cryptocurrencies. BTC, accounted for 32.8 percent of the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies as of Jan. 15, making BTC the largest of at least 1,000 existing cryptocurrencies, according to coinmarketcap.com.