Right now, Japan is the opportunity of a lifetime for Bitcoin to actually achieve true adoption. For people familiar with Japan, it is still a heavily all-cash based society. This is very different than places like China where WeChat and Alipay already have everyone locked up as customers, and very different from the US where everyone uses some reward credit card and can't see the benefits of using Bitcoin on a daily basis. Japan is a nation where people still hand each other huge stacks of cash because most shops don't take credit, don't take any kind of digital payments.

And at the same time Japan is a nation where their interest rates are literally negative, so everyone is holding tons of cash that keeps disappearing unless you actually hold onto tons of paper notes which is a ridiculous concept.

So it's not surprising that now that Bitcoin is legal people in japan are going crazy for it, it solves their problems with negative interest rates and a devaluing currency and for the first time it provides a digital payment platform and prevents people from having to hoard sacks of cash all at once. So now merchants are accepting it, which is wonderful. Except if the current fees keep up by the time it's fully legalized in Japan this summer (keep in mind that this current run-up is still prior to full acceptance as a currency this summer) then we will blow our chance at actually becoming the defacto digital payment platform in Japan.

I mean this is craziness guys, we actually have a shot at becoming THE digital payment platform in an advanced nation, but we're bickering and infighting while the biggest opportunity ever is in front of us. If we can get one country to adopt it successfully then it will be much easier to get others to follow. So we can't blow this.

We need a solution to scaling and we need it ASAP, optimally right as Japan fully legalizes Bitcoin we should have a solution to get the fees down. I think segwit needs to be activated and clearly the majority of bitcoiners agree, but I don't think it's a good idea to throw around any ideas that would split the chain or cause any fear amongst normal folks right when Bitcoin is fully legalized. I think whatever solution we finally 100% agree to needs to be unanimous but I also think we all need to think 100% in terms of collaborative work and working on solutions together instead of constant attacks and animosity.

Don't blow this.