Cash in With the Virtual Currency Girls, Japan’s Bizarre Bitcoin-Based Pop Group

If you’re wondering about Bitcoin, we’ve got a handy explainer for you. But, we fully admit, that explainer is lacking one important thing: a catchy upbeat melody. Enter Kasotsuka Shojo, or in English, the Virtual Currency Girls, a new Japanese pop group with an innovative gimmick. Each girl wears a Mexican wrestling mask with the emblem of a different cryptocurrency.

There are eight members Rara Naruse (Bitcoin Cash), Princess Shirahama (Bitcoin), Ami Ami (Ethereum), Minami Suzuka (Neo), Ai Masu Momo (MonaCoin), Matsuzawa Furako (Cardano), Kamikawa Lake Haruka (Nem) and Hinata Kodomi (Ripple). Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of all those different cryptocurrencies — MonaCoin doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.

Their debut song is “The Moon, Virtual Currency and Me,” which has lyrics like “Let’s do mining, dig there / The more I dig, the more expensive the electricity bill,” referring to the high power costs of mining. The song also warns about fraud, with lines like “Watch out for scams” and “Be aware of your passwords; don’t use the same ones!”

The Virtual Currency Girls are, pardon the pun, putting their money where their mouths are. Each of the girls is paid in Bitcoin — though the Girls have expressed their desires to be paid in their corresponding cryptocurrencies. They even stayed loyal to cryptocurrency. After the bitcoin account the band was paid from was frozen following a $530 million theft of NEM, their managers offered to pay in yen, but the Virtual Currency Girls refused.

The Virtual Currency Girls are also experts in their chosen cryptocurrency. On stage, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash bicker over which is the true Bitcoin, with Shirahama arguing that Bitcoin Cash was a mere flash-in-the-pain versus the original.

While it’s one of the stranger J-pop gimmicks we’ve come across — though, really, is it any stranger than Babymetal? — we’d be lying if we said their debut single wasn’t catchy. We can’t wait for them to add a LGBT Token member to the group!