He once stated he had little interest in money itself. What then is the true driving force behind his high-intensity daily trading? Is it the challenge, enjoyment, or simply habit?

Ha, that's an excellent question! Many people wonder the same thing about Takashi Kakogawa (better known as B.N.F.). He has already amassed more wealth than an ordinary person could spend in several lifetimes, yet he still lives with monk-like simplicity, glued to his screens day in and day out like clocking in for work. What's the point?

Actually, once you understand the answer to this question, you also gain insight into what drives people who reach the pinnacle in their respective fields.

I believe what motivates him is definitely not a single factor, but a perfect fusion of challenge, enjoyment, and habit, with challenge and enjoyment being the core.

We can break it down to understand:

1. Seeing it as the ultimate "game" to conquer

This is the core motivation.

Think about it: For a top player, is gold in the game important? Yes, but it's essentially just a score. What truly hooks them is the thrill of defeating a powerful boss, the satisfaction of solving a complex puzzle, the conquering desire to constantly beat their own high score.

For Takashi Kakogawa, the stock market is the ultimate game: the most complex, the most dynamic, one you can never truly "conquer" forever.

Money = Score: He himself has said that money, to him, feels more like a game score. Making ¥100 million today is like getting an S-rank rating in a game – his score just jumped higher. This growth in "score" is direct validation that his strategy, judgment, and execution are "correct."
The Market = The Opponent: His adversary isn't a specific person; it's the entire market—a vast, unfathomable, ever-shifting beast forged from the greed, fear, intelligence, and folly of countless people. The satisfaction from the challenge of "taking a bite" out of this formidable opponent each day is incomparable to any luxury good.

2. Finding pure enjoyment in the puzzle-solving

Trading, for him, isn't "gambling." It's more like conducting a precise, high-speed scientific experiment.

His daily work essentially involves:

Observation: Staring at countless screens, absorbing a flood of data and information.
Analysis: Sifting through this chaotic flow to find logic and patterns—divergences between sectors and indices, the underlying reasons for a stock's unusual move.
Hypothesis: Based on the analysis, he formulates a hypothesis, like "I believe this stock will rise/fall in the next 30 minutes".
Validation: Placing the trade, using real capital to test whether his hypothesis is correct.

When the market confirms his prediction, when the price action unfolds exactly as he foresaw, the intellectual thrill of "seeing through the market" becomes his greatest reward. The nature of this joy is fundamentally the same as a mathematician solving a world-class theorem or a programmer writing flawless code.

3. Built upon challenge and fun: Habit and discipline become muscle memory

When you've relentlessly pursued one activity for over a decade, day in and day out at an extreme intensity, it inevitably becomes a habit, even a physiological need.

Life is Trading: For him, "trading" is no longer a job; it is his lifestyle. Just as we need to eat and sleep daily, he needs to watch the markets, analyze, and trade. If he were prevented from doing it one day, he might feel empty and unsettled.
The Embodiment of Discipline: This ceaseless, high-intensity training forged an iron discipline. His trading is incredibly cool-headed and rational, virtually immune to emotion. This ingrained habit and discipline, in turn, ensure his continued "wins" in the game. Habit is his armor, enabling him to better relish the challenge and enjoyment.

In summary

So, the true driving force behind Takashi Kakogawa can be understood like this:

Challenge is his walking stick for the climb, enjoyment is the scenery he sees along the way, and habit is the strong physique he honed long ago.

He resembles less a miserly hoarder of riches, and more a top-tier grandmaster using the financial markets as his chessboard. Money is merely the "prize" the system automatically awards for winning the game. What he truly values is the act of "winning" itself—that peak experience of commanding the board and overcoming profound uncertainty.