Japanese exchanges have begun to receive formal licences from their regulator

[alyssa85]

https://bitsonline.com/japanese-exchanges-licenses/

Japanese exchanges have begun to receive formal operating licenses from local regulator the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Major trading platforms QUOINE and bitFlyer were among the first to get the formal certificate of approval.

CEO Mike Kayamori of QUOINE looked pleased and relieved to get the license — certificate number #00002. Certification, he said, meant companies would have to take the business a lot more seriously, operating more like traditional financial institutions.

“There’s all kinds of fiduciary responsibilities — monthly reports, quarterly reports, transaction reports, suspicious activity statements, etc,” he said.

QUOINE has been doing all this since first applying in April, though. “You don’t just start complying after you get your license,” Kayamori added, “The laws took effect on 1st April; they’ve been watching us for the past six months.”

[deadsilent]

A very good move for bitcoin friendly country like Japan. They are very optimistic on adopting this kind of technology. Issuing license on exchanges means that exchanges are evaluated to ensure the safety of traders and monitor it's transactions. And i think that is the right thing since exchanges can be tools for criminal activities like money laundering. Now exchanges there should comply in able for them to get license to operate. China must do the same thing instead of banning all exchanges there. Japan really amaze me.

[Yudhisthir]

I think it would not be a serious problem to legit traders who trade with their own money.
Might add up some taxes though.

[DaMut]

it is not a serious move ?
oh come on my friend it's a serious move,from this point we should can see it that they will cut off your 'earning' and 'money' from your assets.,
other than that you need to verify everything if you want to do something.
if you do something suspicious they can track you down and hold your assets.
in my country if your money exceed a $100.000 dollars or more when you try to encash it or withdraw it they will ask you from where is it ?
what happen if you're holding 10BTC and the price increase a thousand fold from now on ?
you'll be suspected as a money launderer

[savioroshan]

Anyways its a good move from the Japanese government. Now I hope bitcoin's price will rise again since Japanese government started to give official licenses to the exchanges, Japanese people will start to store more bitcoins in their wallets.  Chinese people will also start to use Japanese exchanges. I hope one day every nation will follow Japan's policies. 

[amacar2]

This news looks quite better than what we are getting from Korea and China lately.
Issuing license or monitoring every transactions might be necessary to stop money laundering because most of the country take it seriously. I think it is better to get monitored than losing chance of investing and trading cryptos completely.

[alyssa85]

This news looks quite better than what we are getting from Korea and China lately.
Issuing license or monitoring every transactions might be necessary to stop money laundering because most of the country take it seriously. I think it is better to get monitored than losing chance of investing and trading cryptos completely.

Yes. The Japanese have decided to licence and regulate cryptocurrency instead of banning it.

And one of the consequences of legalising it is that lots of big Japanese businesses are looking to get into mining and FinTech. In the years to come, legalisation will prove to have been a masterstroke.

[gentlemand]

I wonder what their attitude will be to ICOs and so on. Is there a preapproved list of coins they're permitting to trade or do they have to meet a generalised set of criteria? Unless it's a wider framework I don't see how they can keep ahead of the pace of development.

if it's a specific list they may end up with regulated markets for coins no one has any interest in trading.

[SONG GEET]

Is there any rule Japan have for ICOs that are based in japan? If not than hope they will come up with regulating those ICO rather than banning all of them like china and korea. 

[Zicadis]

Looks like this license battle has been going on for a long time now, great to see that this is now closed and a new foundation has been laid....hope to see more countries with strict regulations follow suit to contribute positively towards this technology of tomorrow. But some of the responsibilities that exchangers will have to follow will be a guaranteed daunting task like producing suspicious activity statements....good luck to them

[Gaaara]

As expected Japan will make a move to regulate the traders. We all know japan has the leading technologies so it is only a matter of time for them to regularise everything that is related to digital currencies, they might in fact be the first one to use them in their own community.

[Rahar02]

Looks like this license battle has been going on for a long time now, great to see that this is now closed and a new foundation has been laid....hope to see more countries with strict regulations follow suit to contribute positively towards this technology of tomorrow. But some of the responsibilities that exchangers will have to follow will be a guaranteed daunting task like producing suspicious activity statements....good luck to them

After China ban most exchanges, Japan has issued their licence for exchanges to ensure the security and encourage people to do not hesitate trade cryptocurrencies through licensed exchanges. China will do the same I guess, due to their last statement about cracked down exchanges and still let 2 exchanges to operate. Most countries does not have strict regulations about bitcoin and exchanges, but soon or later when bitcoin trading volume reach certain point, they will triggered to regulate exchanges as well.

[Kyraishi]

https://bitsonline.com/japanese-exchanges-licenses/

Japanese exchanges have begun to receive formal operating licenses from local regulator the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Major trading platforms QUOINE and bitFlyer were among the first to get the formal certificate of approval.

CEO Mike Kayamori of QUOINE looked pleased and relieved to get the license — certificate number #00002. Certification, he said, meant companies would have to take the business a lot more seriously, operating more like traditional financial institutions.

“There’s all kinds of fiduciary responsibilities — monthly reports, quarterly reports, transaction reports, suspicious activity statements, etc,” he said.

QUOINE has been doing all this since first applying in April, though. “You don’t just start complying after you get your license,” Kayamori added, “The laws took effect on 1st April; they’ve been watching us for the past six months.”

I'm all for positive regulation if it means that exchanges become safer for bitcoin traders to operate on. And Japan seems to be one of the best and most advanced at trying to regulate the cryptocurrency exchange markets.

However hopefully the exchanges aren't revealing too much about customer info, like how much crypto they hold and so on.

That could be potentially a privacy issue.

[BitHodler]

Is there any rule Japan have for ICOs that are based in japan? If not than hope they will come up with regulating those ICO rather than banning all of them like china and korea.  

Important to note is that countries banning ICOs is coming from the fact that they don't have any proper regulations ready to be implemented, which is why they can only choose to ban local ICOs.

Japan is further in its development than China and South Korea, that's for sure, but if that's enough for them to not rely on the ban hammer remains to be seen ~ I wouldn't be surprised to see them actually follow the same path.

It's quite easy to launch an ICO from a different country, and thus the overall ICO problem will continue to thrive despite the bans of China and South Korea. In order to stop this completely, all countries need to unite and ban it.

[Taki]

Such license must be cost a lot, but it's a great move in the side of bitcoin's adoption. I'm sure such practice will become usual one day, registration of all operations with digital money and goods. China should do the same instead of closing their exchangers. But I think sooner or later they will realize how do they mistaken with their decision and they also will fix something about that.

[wantjokull]

 
That's really great move by Japanese. Hope that it will regulate it the way everybody wants and not the way that it will restrict the investment by many means. Taxes, lawsuits are big things that can come aside us and investigate our earnings and investment. The ICO regulation might be helpful in terms of legitimacy as these guys will be watching there asses. No one will ever dare to spam the customers now and that will be like happy ending. Many people used to think ICO will go off the chart soon but here we are with legal ICO now and they will last longer than we expected. Good time to investment and safest one, it will be!

[anggriani]

https://bitsonline.com/japanese-exchanges-licenses/

Japanese exchanges have begun to receive formal operating licenses from local regulator the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Major trading platforms QUOINE and bitFlyer were among the first to get the formal certificate of approval.

CEO Mike Kayamori of QUOINE looked pleased and relieved to get the license — certificate number #00002. Certification, he said, meant companies would have to take the business a lot more seriously, operating more like traditional financial institutions.

“There’s all kinds of fiduciary responsibilities — monthly reports, quarterly reports, transaction reports, suspicious activity statements, etc,” he said.

QUOINE has been doing all this since first applying in April, though. “You don’t just start complying after you get your license,” Kayamori added, “The laws took effect on 1st April; they’ve been watching us for the past six months.”

This is a good move taken japan, they are smart. Where there are some countries in asia that prohibit crypto, japan actually do the opposite and strongly supports crypto. I appreciate japan, fore world crypto in asia will be better and many countries will follow japan.

[alyssa85]

Japan has now licenced 11 exchanges:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-japan-bitcoin/japans-fsa-gives-official-endorsement-to-11-cryptocurrency-exchanges-idUKKCN1C40T9?il=0

That's more exchanges than most countries have! Looks like now it's legal, they'll try to gain market share and dominance in the crypto space.

[maeusi]

It is the best move by a government to not act against cryptocurrencies, but legalize and get under their control. But I have doubts, that it would be the best move for us in the result of direction by governments and the traditional finance institutes.

[romani245]

It is the best move by a government to not act against cryptocurrencies, but legalize and get under their control. But I have doubts, that it would be the best move for us in the result of direction by governments and the traditional finance institutes.

There's nothing that can be done about that. I'd like to have my cake and eat it too, but the fact is, cryptocurrencies can't go sky-high in value and not be subject to regulation by various governments. There's no way around it.

In the long run, I believe that we will see legacy banks offering custodial bitcoin services. One should obviously stay away from such services, but my point is that it will take significant regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies before legacy banks are offering these services.