The local government of the Japanese village of Nishiawakura in Okayama Prefecture is planning to launch an initial coin offering (ICO) as a way to boost its economy. The government will be working with a Blockchain technology provider as its partner in the undertaking.

The government of Nishiawakura is still in the planning stage on how it will conduct the ICO. It appears, however, that the local officials are not interested in using the Ethereum and Waves platform in the ICO. The money raised from the ICO is intended to finance projects to upgrade vital infrastructure in the village.

The company models its Blockchain developments to that of the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin for various purposes. The new chains that were developed by the firm can be connected to the Bitcoin Blockchain for live timestamping. One possible weakness of the chains developed by the developer, however, is that they are fully dependent on Amazon’s Amazon Web Services for data storage, which is a rather centralized approach.

Positive views of the Japanese people on ICOs and digital currencies

The plan by the local government of Nishiawakura to conduct an ICO shows that the people in Japan are more open-minded about the new financing model. The lack of any clear regulatory framework to cover the ICOs, however, can pose as a major hindrance to the success of the planned ICO by the Nishiawakura government.

In case of a failure, the government can still have other options to raise the needed capital like asking for support from the national government and seeking investments from the private sector. It remains to be seen, however, if the local officials will advance their planned ICO or cancel it.