Astar Network’s ad features 329 top brands to support Web3 in Japan

On September 26th, Nikkei published an advertisement featuring top banks, technology companies and other businesses that came together to spearhead the growth of Japan’s web3 ecosystem. The campaign onboarded reputable brands to support Astar’s Web3 project, including GMO, DeNA, Accenture, Microsoft and AWS. The initiative is focused on educating Japanese businesses about Web3-related use cases and promoting their development.

As part of the promotional package, Astar Network is distributing free NFTs via QR codes. These non-transferable NFTs are up for grabs by simply scanning the code located at the bottom right corner of the Nikkei newspaper ad. The action automatically generates a new wallet address for people who don’t have them.

“Web3 is all about community. And we are proud that we could make this epoch-making ad supported by 329 companies including the biggest banks, reputable Internet companies and branch officers of a foreign companies like Microsoft and Accenture. This ad reflects the strong unity of the Japanese ecosystem. As Japan’s leading blockchain project, we will do our best to accelerate Web3 innovation through Astar,” said Sota Watanabe, founder and CEO of Astar Network.

Astar Network is a Japanese-based bridge connecting layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum and Cosmos with the Polkadot ecosystem. It was recently voted the most popular blockchain in the country by the Japanese Blockchain Association. 

Astar Network is the only Polkadot parachain that enables token holders to stake tokens on their favorite dApp, meaning web3 developers can earn a basic income through staking rewards. Apps that run directly on nodes suffer high latency and downtime because nodes are general-purpose and not designed to be highly available. As such, Astar is serving as the parachain that connects Polkadot to all major Level 1 blockchains.

Astar Network has long been a fixture in the Japanese market. It says its latest advert is a way of supporting the Japanese government and politicians who want to take the country into the Web3 era. Network CEO Sota Watanabe is already helping the government as well as some of its key business players on a path forward in Web3.

So far this year, Japan has made Web3 a part of its national strategy, publishing reports and proposing updates to existing laws and regulations. That rapid push began earlier when Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida designated Web3 a pillar of economic reform.

In an important landmark for the buzzword, the PM floated the idea that Web3 and its applications align with his administration’s agenda of economic recovery and revitalizing local communities. 

To unleash a wave of web3 creativity, Astar Network promotes its “Build2Earn,” a newly launched dApp staking initiative which lets users nominate their tokens to dApps they want to support. The model assigns a portion of the rewards generated from every block to be split between developers and stakers that throw their money behind a dApp, creating a strong incentive for developers who get paid for their work.