Japanese teens love their idols. And not in the way that kids in North America fawn over celebrities like Beyoncé—there’s an entire industry consisting of young women in “ idol groups ” with names like C-ute designed to cultivate and sustain dedicated (and lucrative) fandoms. BitGirls is the latest attempt at tapping into this market, but with a twist: the company behind it is Tech Bureau Corp., a Japanese firm that runs a cryptocurrency exchange , and the BitGirls—minor internet celebrities Maya Sano , Chika Yuki , and Kaori Asakura , according to the show’s site —will compete in a talent show where fans can vote for their favourite contestant by purchasing digital tokens. Every BitGirl has their own virtual currency (so far there’s the Chikarin, the Sanoyama, and the Kaori), and in order to buy into their favourite BitGirl’s cult of celebrity, the young fans who typically make up the target market for idol girl groups will have to literally buy in. This is complete evil genius and here’s why. From left: Kaori Asakura, Chika Yuki, Maya Sano. Screengrab: BitGirls Each girl’s coin is what’s known as a “token,” which are easily created in minutes on the bitcoin blockchain and have very little to no value when they get started. However, as soon as people start buying up the coins, trading them, and if businesses start accepting them, they can become quite valuable . Now, imagine that a large group of teens start buying up an initially worthless token (or numerous ones, if they want to vote for a different girl week-to-week) so that its value skyrockets. Now, the people voting for their favourite idols have a real monetary investment in their fandom instead of just an emotional one. “For a certain number of fans, yes,” Takao Asayama, […]
