Japan’s Largest Gift Card Maker Amaten Collaborate With Aelf

The largest gift card exchange in Japan announces its intent to implement blockchain for boosting its next phase of development.

According to a statement from August 20^th, a secondary marketplace for gift cards, Amaten, reported a collaboration with Aelf, the cloud computed start-up based in Singapore.

Amaten was established in 2012 and it has captured 40% of Japan’s total gift card exchange volume and earns around $110 million as revenue every year. Under the global umbrella, the industry has grown into a market worth $340 billion.

The company aims to “revolutionize the way gift cards are issued, purchased and exchanged,” by transforming gift cards into digital assets through Aelf’s platform.

“The current system and technology used for gift card[s] is completely obsolete and dates all the way back to the mid-90s,” said Amaten chairman, Tom Kanazawa. “It still suffers from basic fundamental shortcomings and is very inconvenient. I believe that the gift card industry can be a perfect use case for blockchain.”

The blockchain by Aelf provides an immutable record for the issuance of a gift card and any ownership exchanges. Which ultimately increases the transparency in the platform.

“We have chosen to partner with… Aelf, because they offer the scalability, dedicated sidechains and smart contract modules that we very much need to build our service rapidly and most cost effectively,” said Kanazawa.

Moreover, the company believes that blockchain decrease the number of gift cards that go unspent.

“Through the partnership with Amaten, we are hoping to pioneer the adoption of blockchain solutions within the traditional industries,” said Zhuling Chen, Aelf’s Co-Founder and COO.