Mikami Yua was born on August 16, 1993, in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Her entertainment career began in an idol group. In 2009, she joined SKE48 under the stage name Kito Momona, officially stepping into the entertainment industry. During her time in SKE48, she experienced ups and downs, being demoted to a trainee due to a scandal involving secret meetings with fans, but she later successfully regained her status.
In 2013, she won first place in a photo princess selection contest and appeared on the covers of Playboy Weekly and Young Jump. In 2014, she graduated from SKE48, and the following year she changed her name to 'Mikami Yua' and officially entered the AV industry. Since then, she quickly rose to fame in the adult film industry, joining Ebisu Muscats in 2016, where she won the DMM Adult Award for Best New Actress, and in 2017, she won the DMM Adult Award for Best Actress.
In 2018, she formed the Honey Popcorn group with Sakura Shoko and Matsuda Miko, and released an album. In the AV industry, she has maintained a high level of popularity, and in 2020, she became the top-grossing AV actress for the first half of the year. In 2022, she announced her independence and established her own agency. In March 2023, she announced her retirement from the AV industry.
Mikami Yua has ventured into the cryptocurrency space, being associated with the JPEX virtual asset trading platform. JPEX was established in 2020, and this platform heavily promoted itself through advertising, media, OTC, and internet influencers, claiming low risk and high return to attract investors. It also issued its own platform token 'JPC', but JPC cannot be traded on other platforms. In 2023, JPEX invited Mikami Yua to shoot a promotional video, where she appeared with a sweet image and stated in Japanese: 'Investing in virtual currency, JPEX is the best.' and provided the JPEX website.
However, JPEX has been revealed to have many problems. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission included it in the 'List of Unlicensed Companies and Suspicious Websites' as early as July 2022. In September 2023, the Hong Kong police launched an investigation into JPEX, and by that time, they had received reports from 1,641 people, involving a total of 1.2 billion Hong Kong dollars. JPEX is suspected of inducing investors to deposit cryptocurrency through promises of high returns and requiring customers to provide their cryptocurrency private keys for safekeeping, essentially controlling users' assets. After warnings from the Securities and Futures Commission, JPEX not only increased withdrawal fees but also restricted withdrawals, subsequently delisting all financial transactions.
After Mikami Yua filmed the promotional video for JPEX, it sparked widespread controversy. Many questioned whether it was appropriate for adult film stars to promote financial investments. In the cryptocurrency space, which is filled with risks and uncertainties, ordinary investors can easily be misled by the star effect. Mikami Yua has a large fan base in the adult film industry, and her promotion might lead some fans who are unaware of the risks of virtual currencies to blindly invest. Moreover, cryptocurrency trading has regulatory gaps in many regions, and investing in virtual currencies faces various risks such as significant price fluctuations, platform collapses, and hacking attacks. JPEX itself is a trading platform that has not obtained a legal license, so the safety of investors' funds cannot be guaranteed.
The incident of Mikami Yua issuing a token (by promoting the JPEX platform token JPC) demonstrates that marketing strategies in the cryptocurrency space are ever-evolving, and using the star effect to attract investors is a common tactic. Investors must maintain a clear mind when faced with dazzling promotions, deeply understand the operation mechanisms of virtual currencies and trading platforms, fully assess the risks, and must not blindly follow trends to avoid becoming victims of chaos in the cryptocurrency space. In this alluring yet risky cryptocurrency world, rationality and caution should be the attitudes of investors.
#SEC推迟多个现货ETF审批
