ItalianoGACKT Official Blog update. Translation below:
New York, 6am.
Despite that it’s Christmas, I was working through the night till dawn approached.
I’ve been flying around various countries
during these past few months.
For the sake of the success of this project.
It seems that word has already gone out on the street but
now that it’s been uploaded online, the information has been released.
Until now, during the past 14 years, I’ve been hiding in the shadows,
keeping out of sight without putting my name on any business at all.
Some time last year,
it’s been more or less revealed that I’m a businessman but
even so, I kept in mind to not draw attention to myself.
In the end,
if my name is being displayed up front,
there will also be those who say that it doesn’t matter.
In any case, no matter what business I do,
if I’m hidden, I won’t get hit.
However,
it’s a good thing that I’ve put myself out.
It’s the first time that I’m putting out my real name like this.
This was done because it’s only natural that the business
has to take on full responsibility and firmly proceed to the very end,
and more than anything else,
it’s because I believe that this could be a huge opportunity
for me to bring encouragement to many people around the world who are facing their own dilemmas.
There are probably people wondering
why is GACKT dealing in cryptocurrencies?.
In the first place, does everyone know
what’s happening to the world now?
➖Thus far, whatever appears for the first time
in society has been regarded as【heresy】➖
The idea of whether cryptocurrencies
will be accepted
is no longer stuck at the level of mere discussions.
Since the emergence of 【cryptocurrencies】and 【blockchain】
the world has started changing greatly.
Beyond national borders, the world is being transformed at a tremendous speed.
10 years from now,
a world where paper currency has disappeared will definitely arrive.
Even most of the bank buildings
will probably disappear from the streets.
Then,
the governing system of each country
will rebuild it with a new world map of the economy.
That will happen in the near future.
You can even say that the potential of cryptocurrencies
will be the【democratisation of money】, surpassing national borders, countries, and governments.
The things that can be done with cryptocurrencies are infinite.
It will even change the form that
support and donations for disaster assistance or food shortages comes in.
It may even reduce financial crime.
No one can deny that
cryptocurrency
is this world’s biggest growing industry
and it can no longer be stopped.
It can also be said that this is
the arrival of an era of worldwide transformation
that goes beyond the era when horse carriages turned into cars.
It’s an industry that’s even bigger than the emergence of the internet.
Of course,
I suppose there will be many people who don’t quite get it.
However, the word bitcoin has started being mentioned
day and night on the news.
and they should’ve have at least
somehow, have heard of the words cryptocurrency or virtual currency before.
And,
before you know it, it will slip into your life
and an era when your wallet disappears will arrive.
➖Then, why did I,
GACKT, start cryptocurrency as a business?➖
A lot of people foresee
an economic downturn that will come after 2020,
but Japan, at present, no longer has any industries
that are even capable of simply bouncing back from that.
There is now no other way to raise your own standard of living
except through the heavy use of cryptocurrencies
to shrink the Japanese’s current economic disparity that steadily diverges from the rest of the world.
In other words,
I’m doing this because there’s a need to communicate
this sole means to as many people as possible,
not from an advertising perspective, but earnestly engaging as a businessman,
so as to create awareness about the predominance of cryptocurrencies as an investment.
Of course,
I don’t expect that I can reach everyone.
Neither do I think that this is something that can save everyone.
No matter what I say, there will definitely be people who disagree.
『Investment huh…』
or something of the sort,
I suppose there will also be people who stubbornly refuse to listen.
There was such an incident.
It happened about 15 years ago.
At the time,
we were right in the middle of the CD bubble.
It was a time when you can sell anything
if you released a song that’s similar to what sells well.
It was a time when how many sellable songs you can release
is more important than whether a person can sing.
The staff from record companies at the time
showed up at my studio numerous times
and came to ask me to write songs that can sell over a million copies
or write something similar to what sells at the time but
I’ve stubbornly refused.
An artiste who produces simply for the sake of selling more
will not be active for more than a year.
In fact, there are a mountain load of artistes who disappeared the next year.
Even if they made it past that time, they eventually disappeared after 2 or 3 years.
For me,
I firmly and conscientiously built up
my core market of around 300,000 copies,
and kept saying that it’ll only mean something if I could continue doing this for 20 years.
Even if I was called a maniac,
I continued to pursue my own music style
and a unique stage that only I can pull off.
With regards to my staging, profits were disregarded,
and with the words 「It’s alright even if no profit is made」,
money was thoroughly pumped in and I kept on production.
There was a lot of opposition from both internal and external parties but
more importantly,
I was able to create a strong and unique market of my own.
However,
I could not stay in contentment.
When I reached 30,
the CD bubble has once again reached it’s maximum point.
For me, who was originally a computer geek,
I had responded to illegal downloads as early as possible but
in my head,
suddenly, a thought came to mind.
【This CD bubble is going to burst soon…】
↓↓↓↓
【CDs will disappear from this world】
↓↓↓↓
【Musicians will no longer
be able to live by selling CDs】
↓↓↓↓
【Styles will change to one that generates sales
only through stage activities】
I arrived at the conclusion that with the CD sales,
someday, in later periods, even my GACKT staging
that I’ve been putting money into as I wish will not be doable anymore.
From that time on,
I’ve invested my own money in any and every business.
I invested in all kinds of financial instruments and businesses.
There were a lot of things that I didn’t know but
I was taught by the business managers around me, and learnt a lot from them.
If I had the time, I showed up at all kinds of gatherings.
Before I knew it,
I had more acquaintances who were businessmen then musicians,
overwhelmingly more.
Since the start of that,
my musician, dancer,
actor friends and other friends from that time kept telling me this.
You have to put 【work】and 【investment】in parallell to one another!
I said a few things in response to that.
The final result is failure.
The final result is getting cheated.
You should just stick to making music.
Don’t get your hands into unrelated things!
If you have that kind of time, then go make music!
I’m not doing this in my free time.
I’m putting my heart in it, sacrificing sleep time to study.
I’ve even traveled around overseas.
Of course,
I also understand the feelings of those people
who want to say these things.
Japanese are a diligent race.
Through education that was given post-war,
most Japanese have not received education on investing,
and have simply worked as a virtue
during these past decades after the war.
It was through this that the country managed to recover tremendously.
However,
our current lifestyles
are being supported by the
savings that the grandparents from that era kept.
When you look around in the world,
most people are impoverished.
Why?
『The salary is low』
『No money』
『Not enough money to live on』
And it’s because they believe that
to improve that,
their only choices are to
change jobs or
increase their work.
Among the Japanese, there are exceptionally many
who think that jobs with high salaries are good jobs,
while jobs with low salaries are useless jobs.
If that’s the case,
does it mean that it’s fine if the low-paying jobs disappeared?
A lot of troubles will actually
happen if those jobs disappeared.
If that’s the case,
what is a job?
I wonder how many people can answer me properly on this.
This is what I think.
➖What is a job➖
Something that can support the important people around you,
something that supports the city,
you can even say that it’s something that supports the country.
In other words,
it can be said that this is a 【duty】.
The compensation for that is your salary.
And many Japanese
severely lack regard
and have a bias against this.
【Investment】.
➖What is investment➖
It’s something that enriches your life.
You invest for the sake of enriching your life,
and you properly do the work that your job needs you to.
That is the thinking that is absolutely necessary
to realise an abundant life plan.
Of course,
investment is your own responsibility.
I’ve failed in the past too.
However,
between all the pluses and minuses,
the result is an overwhelming plus,
so my own life plan has been realised in this way.
If
I chose to continue to only make music like that
when I was 30,
I may have already disappeared a long time ago.
Most of my musician friends from that time
have already disappeared.
Of course,
investing isn’t simple.
Besides,
there are also other reasons why many people in the world
do not try their hand in investing.
There are also a number of fraudulent sham investment cases in the streets.
Indeed, I suppose it’s because of such things that makes the country’s protection of consumers important.
However,
does keeping the general public away from the investment market
simply by using regulatoins
really solve the root problem in the end?
This is what I think.
What we really need, is
➖The acquiring of adequate【literacy】
for a person to protect themselves well➖
Literacy is
the knowledge about this field, and the ability to apply it.
And,
the most important thing that is needed to bring literacy to a large number of people,
is the provision of an environment to do so.
However, unfortunately,
the reality is that in Japan, it is biased where only people who possess
assets above a certain value are eligible for financial instruments.
In other words,
there is no suitable investment environment for the general public.
The only way to increase your own literacy,
is to increase your experience through
purchasing and investing in financial instruments,
using your own money, even if it’s just a small amount.
Cryptocurrencies
are easier for the general public to get into, compared to the complicated financial instruments.
Right now, even though the speculative part of it is quite large,
it is a future that will eventually arrive,
and if you look back
at the change from horse carriage to cars,
you probably won’t feel that unsettled
about getting your hands on the currency of the future.
In the new age where money is democratised,
developing credence in the currency can only be done through the participation of each person of the general public.
The participation of each person will build up the credibility of the currency.
And that,
will also become an investment.
I think that many more people have to experience investing
through cryptocurrencies.
And
in order to increase literacy,
in order to achieve an abundant life plan,
you have to find a start that leads to the realisation of asset management.
This time,
I won’t write about anything deeper than the above but
in the end,
『You can’t hit the ball until you stand at the bat』
Whether you’ll remain as a spectator,
or whether you’ll think of it as an opportunity and try stepping up to the bat,
it depends on you.
Decide for yourself,
and make your own move.
Because this life doesn’t belong to anyone else.
It’s your own life.
Source: GACKT Blog
Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team
Translation © GACKT ITALIA