Astar Network Partners With Shibuya to Support Tokyo Ward’s Web3 Strategy

Tokyo, Japan, 8th March, 2023

Blockchain innovation hub Astar Network has partnered with Shibuya, the Tokyo ward famed for its commerce and finance. The agreement will see Astar support Shibuya’s new web3 initiative and host events that support this strategy.

The partnership between Astar Network and Shibuya is the first of its kind, marking a landmark agreement between a Japanese blockchain and one of Tokyo’s largest and most densely populated districts.

In addition to playing a lead role in Shibuya’s Startup Support activities, Astar will host complementary events including hackathons and educational programs focused on web3.

Tokyo’s preeminent financial hub, Shibuya ward features two of the world’s busiest railway stations and one of Japan’s best fashion districts. Shibuya is the headquarters of major national and international corporations including Google. It’s also where Startale Labs, the web3 tech company founded by Astar Foundation CEO Sota Watanabe, will be located.

Sota Watanabe said: “Shibuya is the largest city for young people in Japan and the city of startups. It’s known as Japan’s Silicon Valley, or “Bit Valley,” derived from a place in Shibuya（渋谷), combining Bitter (渋) and Valley (谷). We’re honored to have opened our office in this tech hub and to have signed a basic agreement with the city to utilize web3.”

Through partnerships and business agreements, Astar Network is playing a major role in expediting the growth of web3 in its native Japan. The blockchain innovation hub has created case studies for solving economic challenges using web3. It’s also reducing barriers to broader web3 adoption through education and providing opportunities for engineers and business leaders to participate in this growing sector.

About Astar Network

Astar Network supports the building of dApps with EVM and WASM smart contracts and offers developers true interoperability with cross-consensus messaging (XCM) and a cross-virtual machine (XVM). Astar’s unique Build2Earn model empowers developers to get paid through a dApp staking mechanism for their code and the dApps they build.

One of the first parachains to come to the Polkadot ecosystem, Astar is a vibrant network that is supported by all major exchanges and tier 1 VCs. Astar offers the flexibility of all Ethereum and WASM toolings for developers to start building their dApps. To accelerate growth on Polkadot and Kusama Networks, Astar SpaceLabs offers an Incubation Hub for top TVL dApps.

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Contact

Maarten Henskens
press@astar.network