JAPAN is being urged to create a minister for the metaverse in order to capitalise on the opportunities of Web 3.0.
The government has been told a politician should be given a role purely to specialise on the metaverse, NFTs and cryptocurrency so that Japan can “drive innovation in the Web 3.0 era”.
The radical move would be unprecedented around the world, with no other country having such a minister.
Recommendations for such a position were unveiled in a report commissioned by the government.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party launched an NFT police task force in January to look into blockchain technology and how it can help boost Japan’s strategy for growth.
It was chaired by Masaaki Taira, the country’s former minister fo digital transformation.
Sign up to get our weekly cryptocurrency, NFT and metaverse news round-ups direct to your inbox
In a paper setting out the group’s recommendations, the MPs said a minister should be appointed for working on the response to Web 3.0 in order to “take the initiative” and establish global standards in the space.
Describing Web 3.0 as “a new frontier of the digital economy”, the taskforce set out a range of of challenges that Japan needed to rise to.
As well as looking at how to use the metaverse to boost business trade, it said greater action was needed on rules and regulation of NFTs.
It warned that a lack of policies on regulating non-fungible tokens and on taxation risked Japan falling behind the rest of the world in adapting to the rapidly developing new technology.
In a final recommendation, the taskforce suggested the government look taxation around cryptocurrencies.
Taira said that presently there was a discrepancy in the way digital currencies were treated.
While listed stocks are subject to 20 percent tax, cryptocurrencies are treated differently and can be taxed at as much as 55 percent.
Japan’s government has not said whether it intends to take forward the proposals on how to respond to Web 3.0’s growth.
