A new TV show launching in Japan is aims to introduce the idea of digital currency and blockchain technology to the public with the help of Japanese cute-girl “idols.” The reality TV show, BitGirls , will start broadcasting on TOKYO MX (Tokyo Metropolitan Television) with two special prequels on October 21 and 28, 2016 with regular broadcasting every Friday night beginning in November. An estimated 14.3 million households in Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, and the Ibaraki area subscribe to TOYKO MX, making it a wide-reaching channel that covers 80 percent of the Kanto area in Japan. Combined with the fact that BitGirls will be hosted by two popular TV talents, comedian Eiji Shibata and actress/talent model Risa Yoshiki, it is poised to attract a large number of viewers when it airs. Over the course of the first season the six girls — Djasanyan, Sanomaya, Chikarin, Satoayaka, Tsukasa, and Kaori — will undertake various challenges with the television hosts. Each girl “becomes” a digital currency. Viewers show their support for their favorite girl by buying her tokens known as Torekabu. This is a combination of two Japanese words: toreaka, meaning trading cards and kabu, meaning stock shares. On October 3, the BitGirls Initial Coin Offering (ICO) crowdsale launched on the producers’ Osaka-based platform Zaif Exchange. Each Torekabu will be limited to five million tokens: 3.5 million will be sold in the Initial Coin Offering which began on October 3, one million will be reserved, and 0.5 million will be set aside for marketing and operational costs by the committee. Torekabu will be traded in Zaif, Counterparty, bitcoin, and XEM, the digital currency of the New Economy Movement (NEM) blockchain. Fans who want to vote have to buy Torekabu coins with these currencies; therefore, they will first need to buy an […]
