RYO Coin: Japan's Web3 Revolution Making Crypto Accessible to Everyone
SINGAPORE, SG / ACCESS Newswire / March 2, 2025 / In a world where crypto remains complex and fragmented, RYO Coin is changing the game-not just for blockchain, but for the future of digital engagement.
More than a cryptocurrency, RYO is designed to be a full-scale financial ecosystem offering full autonomy over digital assets, while integrating real-world commerce, social impact, and gaming - built to benefit everyone.
'We are reaching beyond crypto traders to everyday people who want an engaging, rewarding digital experience,' said Anthony Diaz, Founder & Chairman of the RYO Project.
Rooted in Japan's traditions of honor, respect, integrity and operating under the world's strictest compliance standards, RYO is committed to transparency, cutting-edge technology, consumer protection and expanding beyond crypto to reach the masses worldwide.
Beyond Crypto: A Full-Scale Digital Ecosystem
Unlike most projects that focus solely on token trading, RYO bridges blockchain with real-world applications, entertainment, and social impact, including:
LIFE Wallet - A next-generation Web3 digital wallet for seamless transactions.
The Global Mall - A crypto-integrated e-commerce platform for everyday shopping.
Japan's Crypto ATM Network - The country's first and only licensed Crypto ATMs, rolling out nationwide to provide instant digital asset access.
RYO-Chan - RYO's mascot leading its AI-driven smart contract analysis and portfolio management platform, gaming ecosystem, charity initiatives, and incentive programs - bridging blockchain with mainstream audiences through entertainment and social impact.
RYO's initiatives empower communities and showcase blockchain's potential beyond finance.
'We are redefining what blockchain can be,' said Lani Dizon, Co-Founder & President of the RYO Project. 'RYO isn't just a financial tool-it's an entire movement designed to connect, engage, and uplift people through innovation.'
RYO's achievements have not gone unnoticed. In 2024, RYO was honored with the prestigious " Best Crypto Solution" award by the Tech Ascension FinTech Awards, recognizing its security, usability, and innovation in making blockchain technology accessible to the masses.
Regulated, Secure & Expanding Globally
Unlike speculative crypto projects, RYO operates within Japan's highly regulated financial framework, ensuring compliance, security, and long-term trust.
After years of meticulous development, RYO launched its first international listing in May 2024. Unlike many projects that list aggressively, RYO takes a compliance-first, strategic approach to expansion.
Each listing-including XT.COM, LBank, MEXC, and DigiFinex Global - was carefully selected under the guidance of its regulatory advisors from Japan. More listings are planned for 2025, maintaining the same rigorous standards. This measured strategy has strengthened investor confidence, upheld regulatory integrity, and ensures long-term, sustainable growth.
A Loyal, Multi-Generational Community
With over 30 years of marketing expertise in Japan, RYO has built a large, multi-generational community spanning all age groups-including the elderly-through strategic education and awareness initiatives. This broad adoption sets RYO apart, proving its usability, trust, and mass appeal across diverse demographics.
What's Next: Expanding the RYO Universe
Expanding the ecosystem for greater simplicity and usability.
Further global exchange listings to expand accessibility.
New real-world payment integrations with businesses and merchants.
Launch of RYO-Chan gaming & interactive experiences.
Charity partnerships & social impact programs.
'We're not just building a token-we're building for the future,' Diaz emphasized. 'Crypto is only one piece of the puzzle. We are creating an entirely new way for people to connect, earn, shop, and engage-all through blockchain.'
Join the RYO Revolution!
With a strong foundation, Japan regulatory compliance, and a vision far beyond finance, RYO is shaping the future of Web3.
Media Contact
Organization: Zenza Capital PTE. Limited
Address: 81 UBI AVENUE 4
City: Singapore
Country: Singapore
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Los Angeles Times
5 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel's plant raises questions about its future despite heavy investment
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The fatal explosion last week at U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh-area coal-processing plant has revived debate about its future just as the iconic American company was emerging from a long period of uncertainty. The fortunes of steelmaking in the United States — along with profits, share prices and steel prices — have been buoyed by years of friendly administrations in Washington that slapped tariffs on foreign imports and bolstered the industry's anticompetitive trade cases against China. Most recently, President Trump's administration postponed new hazardous air pollution requirements for the nation's roughly dozen coke plants, including Clairton Coke Works, where the blast occurred, and he approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15-billion acquisition by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel's promised infusion of cash has brought vows that steelmaking will continue in the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh long synonymous with steelmaking. 'We're investing money here. And we wouldn't have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren't absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley,' David Burritt, U.S. Steel's chief executive, said at a news conference Tuesday, a day after the explosion. 'You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.' The explosion killed two workers and hospitalized 10 with a blast so powerful that it took hours to find two missing workers beneath charred wreckage and rubble. The cause is under investigation. The plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America and, along with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, is one of a handful of integrated steelmaking operations left in the U.S. The explosion now could test Nippon Steel's resolve in propping up the nearly 110-year-old Clairton plant, or at least force it to spend more than it had anticipated. Nippon Steel didn't respond to a question as to whether the explosion will change its approach to the plant. A spokesperson for the company said in a statement that its 'commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong' and that it sent 'technical experts to work with the local teams in the Clairton Plant, and to provide our full support.' Meanwhile, Burritt said that he had talked to top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that 'this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.' U.S. Steel officials say that safety is their top priority and that they spend $100 million a year on environmental compliance at Clairton alone. Repairing Clairton, however, could be expensive, an investigation into the explosion could turn up more problems, and an official from the United Steelworkers union said it's a constant struggle to get U.S. Steel to invest in its plants. Besides that, production at the facility could be affected for some time. The plant has six batteries of ovens, and two — where the explosion occurred — were damaged. Two others are on a reduced production schedule because of the blast. There is no timeline to get the damaged batteries running again, U.S. Steel said. Accidents are nothing new at Clairton, which heats coal to high temperatures to make coke, a key component in steelmaking, and produces combustible gases as byproducts. An explosion in February injured two workers. Even as Nippon Steel was closing the deal in June, a breakdown at the plant dealt three days of a rotten egg odor into the air around it from elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, the environmental group GASP reported. The Breathe Project, a public health organization, said U.S. Steel has been forced to pay $57 million in fines and settlements since Jan. 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant. A lawsuit over a Christmas Eve fire at Clairton in 2018 that saturated the area's air for weeks with sulfur dioxide produced a withering assessment of conditions there. An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he 'found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.' Clairton, he wrote, is 'inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design.' U.S. Steel settled, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades. Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, said U.S. Steel has shown more willingness to spend money on paying fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe. It's unclear whether Nippon Steel will change Clairton. Central to Trump's approval of the acquisition was Nippon Steel's promises to invest $11 billion into U.S. Steel's aging plants and to give the federal government a say in decisions involving domestic steel production, including plant closings. But much of the $2.2 billion that Nippon Steel has earmarked for the Mon Valley plants is expected to go toward upgrading the finishing mill, or building a new one. For years before the acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley was on the chopping block. That left workers there uncertain whether they'd have jobs in a couple of years and whispering that U.S. Steel couldn't fill openings because nobody believed the jobs would exist much longer. In many ways, U.S. Steel's Mon Valley plants are relics of steelmaking's past. In the early 1970s, U.S. steel production led the world and was at an all-time high, thanks to 62 coke plants that fed 141 blast furnaces. Nobody in the U.S. has built a blast furnace since then, as foreign competition devastated the American steel industry and coal fell out of favor. Now, China is dominant in steel and heavily invested in coal-based steelmaking. In the U.S., there are barely a dozen coke plants and blast furnaces left, as the country's steelmaking has shifted to cheaper electric arc furnaces that use electricity, not coal. Blast furnaces won't entirely go away, analysts say, because they produce metals that are preferred by automakers, appliance makers and oil and gas exploration firms. Still, Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant really will survive much longer, given its age and condition. It could be particularly vulnerable if the economy slides into recession or the fundamentals of the American steel market shift, he said. 'I'm not quite sure it's all set in stone as people believe,' Briem said. 'If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?' Levy writes for the Associated Press.
San Francisco Chronicle
8 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Fatal explosion at U.S. Steel's plant raises questions about its future, despite heavy investment
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The fatal explosion last week at U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh-area coal-processing plant has revived debate about its future just as the iconic American company was emerging from a long period of uncertainty. The fortunes of steelmaking in the U.S. — along with profits, share prices and steel prices — have been buoyed by years of friendly administrations in Washington that slapped tariffs on foreign imports and bolstered the industry's anti-competitive trade cases against China. Most recently, President Donald Trump's administration postponed new hazardous air pollution requirements for the nation's roughly dozen coke plants, like Clairton, and he approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15 billion acquisition by Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. Nippon Steel's promised infusion of cash has brought vows that steelmaking will continue in the Mon Valley, a river valley south of Pittsburgh long synonymous with steelmaking. 'We're investing money here. And we wouldn't have done the deal with Nippon Steel if we weren't absolutely sure that we were going to have an enduring future here in the Mon Valley," David Burritt, U.S. Steel's CEO, told a news conference the day after the explosion. 'You can count on this facility to be around for a long, long time.' Will the explosion change anything? The explosion killed two workers and hospitalized 10 with a blast so powerful that it took hours to find two missing workers beneath charred wreckage and rubble. The cause is under investigation. The plant is considered the largest coking operation in North America and, along with a blast furnace and finishing mill up the Monongahela River, is one of a handful of integrated steelmaking operations left in the U.S. The explosion now could test Nippon Steel's resolve in propping up the nearly 110-year-old Clairton plant, or at least force it to spend more than it had anticipated. Nippon Steel didn't respond to a question as to whether the explosion will change its approach to the plant. Rather, a spokesperson for the company said its 'commitment to the Mon Valley remains strong' and that it sent 'technical experts to work with the local teams in the Clairton Plant, and to provide our full support.' Meanwhile, Burritt said he had talked to top Nippon Steel officials after the explosion and that 'this facility and the Mon Valley are here to stay.' U.S. Steel officials maintain that safety is their top priority and that they spend $100 million a year on environmental compliance at Clairton alone. However, repairing Clairton could be expensive, an investigation into the explosion could turn up more problems, and an official from the United Steelworkers union said it's a constant struggle to get U.S. Steel to invest in its plants. Besides that, production at the facility could be affected for some time. The plant has six batteries of ovens and two — where the explosion occurred — were damaged. Two others are on a reduced production schedule because of the explosion. There is no timeline to get the damaged batteries running again, U.S. Steel said. Accidents are nothing new at Clairton Accidents are nothing new at Clairton, which heats coal to high temperatures to make coke, a key component in steelmaking, and produces combustible gases as byproducts. An explosion in February injured two workers. Even as Nippon Steel was closing the deal in June, a breakdown at the plant dealt three days of a rotten egg odor into the air around it from elevated hydrogen sulfide emissions, the environmental group GASP reported. The Breathe Project, a public health organization, said U.S. Steel has been forced to pay $57 million in fines and settlements since Jan. 1, 2020, for problems at the Clairton plant. A lawsuit over a Christmas Eve fire at the Clairton plant in 2018 that saturated the area's air for weeks with sulfur dioxide produced a withering assessment of conditions there. An engineer for the environmental groups that sued wrote that he 'found no indication that U.S. Steel has an effective, comprehensive maintenance program for the Clairton plant.' The Clairton plant, he wrote, is "inherently dangerous because of the combination of its deficient maintenance and its defective design." U.S. Steel settled, agreeing to spend millions on upgrades. Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, said U.S. Steel has shown more willingness to spend money on fines, lobbying the government and buying back shares to reward shareholders than making its plants safe. Will Clairton be modernized? It's not clear whether Nippon Steel will change Clairton. Central to Trump's approval of the acquisition was Nippon Steel's promises to invest $11 billion into U.S. Steel's aging plants and to give the federal government a say in decisions involving domestic steel production, including plant closings. But much of the $2.2 billion that Nippon Steel has earmarked for the Mon Valley plants is expected to go toward upgrading the finishing mill, or building a new one. For years before the acquisition, U.S. Steel had signaled that the Mon Valley was on the chopping block. That left workers there uncertain whether they'd have jobs in a couple years and whispering that U.S. Steel couldn't fill openings because nobody believed the jobs would exist much longer. Relics of steelmaking's past In many ways, U.S. Steel's Mon Valley plants are relics of steelmaking's past. In the early 1970s, U.S. steel production led the world and was at an all-time high, thanks to 62 coke plants that fed 141 blast furnaces. Nobody in the U.S. has built a blast furnace since then, as foreign competition devastated the American steel industry and coal fell out of favor. Now, China is dominant in steel and heavily invested in coal-based steelmaking. In the U.S., there are barely a dozen coke plants and blast furnaces left, as the country's steelmaking has shifted to cheaper electric arc furnaces that use electricity, not coal. Blast furnaces won't entirely go away, analysts say, since they produce metals that are preferred by automakers, appliance makers and oil and gas exploration firms. Still, Christopher Briem, an economist at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Social and Urban Research, questioned whether the Clairton plant really will survive much longer, given its age and condition. It could be particularly vulnerable if the economy slides into recession or the fundamentals of the American steel market shift, he said. 'I'm not quite sure it's all set in stone as people believe,' Briem said. 'If the market does not bode well for U.S. Steel, for American steel, is Nippon Steel really going to keep these things?'
Time Business News
8 hours ago
- Time Business News
Japan used to be a tech giant. Why is it stuck with fax machines and ink stamps?
Japan's Tech Paradox: Futuristic Aesthetics vs. Outdated Realities: In movies like 'Akira' and 'Ghost in the Shell,' intelligent robots and holograms populate a futuristic Japan, and neon-lit skyscrapers and the city's famed bullet train system come to mind. But there's a more mundane side of Japan that you won't find anywhere in these cyberpunk films. It involves personalized ink stamps, floppy disks, and fax machines—relics that have long since disappeared in other advanced nations but have stubbornly persisted in Japan. The delay in digital technology and subsequent bureaucracy are, for everyday residents, at best inconvenient, and at worst make you want to tear your hair out. 'Japanese banks are portals to hell,' one Facebook user wrote in a local expat group. A sarcastic commenter said, 'Maybe sending a fax would help,' Japan's Digital Struggles: A Delayed Transformation The scale of the problem became terrifyingly clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, as the Japanese government struggled to respond to a nationwide crisis with clumsy digital tools. They have launched a dedicated effort to close that gap over the years, including a brand-new Digital Agency and numerous new initiatives. However, they are entering the technology race decades late, 36 years after the World Wide Web was launched and more than 50 years after the first email was sent. Now as the country races to transform itself, the question remains: What took them so long, and can they still catch up? How did they get here? This was not always the case. In the 1970s and 1980s, when companies like Sony, Toyota, Panasonic, and Nintendo became household names, Japan was admired all over the world. The Walkman and games like Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. were brought to the world by Japan. But that changed by the turn of the century with the rise of computers and the internet. Why Japan Fell Behind in the Digital Age: According to Daisuke Kawai, director of the University of Tokyo's Economic Security and Policy Innovation Program, 'Japan, with its strengths in hardware, was slow to adapt to software and services' as the world moved toward software-driven economies. He said that a variety of things made the problem worse. As Japan's electronics industry declined, engineers fled to foreign firms as a result of the country's inadequate investment in ICT. As a result, the government lacked skilled tech workers and had low digital literacy. Public services were never properly modernized and remained reliant on paper documents and hand-carved, personalized seals called hanko that are used for identity verification. Over time, various ministries and agencies adopted their own patchwork IT strategies, but there was never a unified government push. There were cultural factors, too. Kawai stated, 'Japanese companies are known for their risk-averse culture, seniority-based… hierarchical system, and a slow, consensus-driven decision-making process that hampered innovation.' And thanks to Japan's plummeting birthrate, it has far more old people than young people. According to Kawai, this large proportion of elderly people had 'relatively little demand or pressure for digital services' and a greater skepticism regarding new technologies and digital fraud. Japan's Digital Transformation: From Fax Machines to the Future Jonathan Coopersmith, emeritus professor of history at Texas A&M University, stated that apathy was widespread. Small businesses and individuals didn't feel compelled to switch from fax machines to computers: Why buy expensive new machinery and learn how to use it, when fax worked fine and everybody in Japan used it anyway? A possible switch would have been too disruptive to everyday services, according to larger businesses and institutions like banks and hospitals. Coopersmith, who wrote a book about the fax machine in 2015 and wrote about Japan's relationship with it, stated, 'The bigger you are, the harder it is to change, especially software.' Additionally, it posed a legal problem. Any new technology necessitates new laws, as demonstrated by the introduction of electric scooters into the road or the attempts made by nations around the world to legislate against deepfakes and AI copyright following the AI boom. Digitizing Japan would have required changing thousands of regulations, Coopersmith estimates – and lawmakers simply had no incentive to do so. After all, digitization isn't necessarily a major factor in voter turnout in elections. 'Why do I want to become part of the digital world if I don't need to?' was how he summed it up. A hanko is stamped on a banking document in an arranged photograph taken in Tokyo, Japan A global pandemic was ultimately necessary to bring about change. Japan's technological gap became evident as national and local authorities became overwhelmed, without the digital tools to streamline their processes. Japan's health ministry launched an online portal for hospitals to report cases instead of handwritten faxes, phone calls, or emails in May 2020, months after the virus began to spread worldwide. And even then, hiccups persisted. Public broadcaster NHK reported that a contact tracing app had a system error that lasted for months but didn't let people know they might be exposed. Many had never used file-sharing services or video tools like Zoom before, making it difficult for them to adjust to working and attending school remotely. In one mind-boggling case in 2022, a Japanese town accidentally wired the entirety of its Covid relief fund – about 46.3 million yen ($322,000) – to just one man's bank account. The confusion stemmed from the bank being given both a floppy disk of information and a paper request form – but by the time authorities realized their error, the man had already gambled away most of the funds, according to NHK. For anyone under 35, a floppy disk is a magnetic memory strip encased in plastic that is physically inserted into a computer. Each one typically stores up to 1.44 MB of data, which is less than the size of an average iPhone photo. The situation became so bad that Takuya Hirai, who would become the country's Minister of Digital Transformation in 2021, once referred to the country's response to the pandemic as a 'digital defeat.' According to Coopersmith, a 'combination of fear and opportunity' led to the birth of the Digital Agency, a division tasked with bringing Japan up to speed. Created in 2021, it launched a series of initiatives including rolling out a smart version of Japan's social security card and pushing for more cloud-based infrastructure. Last July, the Digital Agency finally declared victory in its 'war on floppy disks,' eliminating the disks across all government systems – a mammoth effort that required scrapping more than 1,000 regulations governing their use. But there were growing pains, too. Local media reported that the government once asked the public for their thoughts on the metaverse through a complicated process that required downloading an Excel spreadsheet, entering your information, and sending the document back to the ministry via email. 'The (ministry) will respond properly using an (online) form from now on,' wrote then-Digital Minister Taro Kono on Twitter following the move's social media backlash. Digitization as 'a way to survive' According to Kawai, businesses rushed to follow the government's lead, hiring consultants and contractors to assist in system overhauls. Consultant Masahiro Goto is one example. He has assisted large Japanese companies in all sectors in adapting to the digital world as part of the digital transformation team at the Nomura Research Institute (NRI), designing new business models and implementing new internal systems. He stated to CNN that these clients frequently 'are eager to move forward, but they're unsure how to go about it.' 'Many are still using old systems that require a lot of maintenance, or systems that are approaching end-of-service life. In many cases, that's when they reach out to us for help.' According to Goto, the number of businesses seeking the services of NRI consultants 'has definitely been rising year by year,' particularly over the past five years. As a result, the NRI consultants are in high demand. And for good reason: for years, Japanese companies outsourced their IT needs, meaning they now lack the in-house skills to fully digitize. A sign for cashless payments outside a shop in the trendy Omotesando district of Tokyo. He stated, 'Fundamentally, they want to improve the efficiency of their operations, and I believe they want to actively adopt digital technologies as a means of survival.' 'In the end, Japan's population will continue to fall, so increasing productivity is essential.' According to local media, the Digital Agency's plan to eliminate fax machines within the government received 400 formal objections from various ministries in 2021. There may be resistance in certain pockets. Things like the hanko seal – which are rooted in tradition and custom, and which some parents gift to their children when they come of age – may be harder to phase out given their cultural significance. According to Kawai, the rate of progress is also influenced by the Digital Agency's willingness to push for regulatory reform and the degree to which lawmakers will give digitization top priority when creating future budgets. Additionally, new technologies are advancing rapidly in other regions of the world, and Japan is playing catch-up with shifting targets. Coopersmith stated, 'This is going to be an ongoing challenge because the digital technologies of 2025 will be different from those of 2030, 2035.' But experts are optimistic. Kawai projects that Japan could catch up to some Western peers in five to ten years at this rate. Finally, there is a public demand for it, as more and more businesses are offering new online services and accepting cashless payments. 'People are generally eager to digitize for sure,' said Kawai. 'I'm sure that young people, or the general public, prefer to digitize as fast as possible.' Blogger Profile: Name: Usama Arshad Website link: TIME BUSINESS NEWS
