When Artemis II passed behind the Moon, the crew went 40 minutes without a signal. A sustained lunar presence needs always-on infrastructure, not one-shot mission links. We trace what KDDI, the carrier that once relayed Japan's international calls, is building with laser comms and multi-hop relays, and ask how close it really is.
Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck has partnered with telecom giant KDDI to launch au Coincheck Digital Assets, a joint venture offering a non-custodial wallet inside the au PAY mini-app to 39.7 million users. KDDI is investing roughly $65 million in Coincheck's parent company. How this differs from US (Coinbase, Robinhood) and Korean (SK Telecom T Wallet) models — and what it signals for the stablecoin era.
Japanese lunar startup ispace has unveiled 'Lunar Connect,' a communication and positioning service using lunar orbiting satellites. Partnering with KDDI for ground stations and planning 5 satellites by 2030, ispace is pivoting from a transport company to a space infrastructure provider. The new unified ULTRA lander marks another strategic shift.
Two employees at a KDDI subsidiary ran ¥246.1 billion (about $1.6 billion) in fictitious transactions for 7 years undetected. How did Japan's third-largest telecom fail to catch fraud where 99.7% of a business unit's revenue was fake? An analysis of structural governance failures in Japanese corporations.