Bitcoin Forum

It is good to see that some exchanges are taking the initiative in improving their part of the cryptospace, and making it safer and more reliable for the users, encouraging more to come in and invest.

I reckon the only thing that averts people from participating in the cryptospace is the perceived lack of security and lack of accountability on the exchange if they have their funds stolen.

This has to change soon.

https://media.coindesk.com/uploads/2018/02/mini-men-on-japan-map-860x430.jpg

According to Reuters, which cites unnamed sources close to the group, 16 exchanges are making the move to self-regulate after the Coincheck exchange had $533 million-worth of NEM tokens stolen in a security breach in January. The new organization could be announced as soon as next week, the report suggests.

The sources said a plan to merge two existing groups - the Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association and Japan Blockchain Association - could not be agreed upon, and that the exchanges had opted to form a new organization that would be registered with the country's financial watchdog, the Financial Services Association (FSA).

Read the full article https://www.coindesk.com/japanese-crypto-exchanges-uniting-to-form-self-regulatory-body-report/

It would be great if exchanges contributed to self-regulation of crypto economy by being more careful with what coins they list. In the short run there's incentive to list more and more coins since it means more volume and more profit, but in the long run this is damaging for the whole crypto industry, because most new coins and tokens are scams/failures. It might even be possible that at some point there will be a major crash of altcoins.

I guess their first agenda would be how to properly secured all the funds of their customers. I think this is a first if I'm not mistaken so Japan really doing good as far as crypto industries are concern. They can even share technical ideas or even hacks attempts, because I'm sure that hackers are really obsessed on trading exchanges because of the huge money involved. If those exchanges shows that they can self-regulated themselves then I'm sure the West can learn a lot from their Japanese counterpart. I'm really glad to hear this news. It looks like it will really bring confidence to those people who want to invest right now, but are being pull back because of the perceived negative connotation about exchanges not being secured specially after the Coincheck hacked last month.

 It's good that the exchanges see what is happening in the market and are eager to protect their customers. In fact, this is not only the interest of investors, but also the stock exchanges themselves. As a rule, if something happens to the funds of depositors, then the reputation of the exchange will suffer very much.

Why the need for self regulation?

As far as I know Coincheck is the only major Japanese exchange that wasn't fully regulated hence the giant hack from them keeping hundreds of millions in one hot wallet.

@gentlemand. You do not think that it is a good idea for exchanges to work together to make cryptocoin trading a safer environment for users?

I reckon it hits 2 birds with 1 stone. It creates a safer and secure environment while keeping the government regulators away from overregulating and controlling the cryptospace.

I'm anticipating the day exchanges become obsolete and atomic swaps become more mainstream/user friendly

Exchanges will never disappear, especially in crypto. Many, many people aren't using crypto for transactions. They only want to use it to trade. They want order books to play with. That means exchanges.



Unquestionably. But they already have the regulations. If Coincheck had been under the umbrella there's good chance their hack wouldn't have happened. Either way a unified voice is always constructive.