Well, that was worthwhile, but ineffective.
This mess is going to continue until somebody complains loudly enough to the Japan Financial Services Agency that they take action.
Unlike the US, Japan has one big financial regulator, the FSA. The FSA regulates banks, money transfer services, insurance companies, stockbrokers, and exchanges. So there's no "falling through the cracks" between regulatory agencies in Japan.
Mt. Gox claimed
this in Akihabara News, back in July 2013
: " They have been in discussion with the Japanese authorities – the Financial Services Agency (FSA) – for 1 and 1/2 years about the business and how it should be regulated. And as an example of how difficult it is to accurately peg what Bitcoins are, the Japanese authorities, to date, say that Mt.Gox does not need a financial license. “There are 3 kinds of licenses for financial activities in Japan and what we do is actually not covered by any of them, so at the moment, the FSA says we are outside of their jurisdiction. There has been discussion about trying to fit us under one of the licenses or to make a new license for our business, but it is not clear where it is going to go at this point.” That's Karpeles talking, though, not the JSA.
So a reasonable question to ask of the JSA is "What office is handling the Mt. Gox matter"? It's worth asking that of the US SEC, which has a cooperation agreement with the JSA. Remember that regulation in Japan is bureaucratic rather than litigation-oriented. The JSA has a lot of authority they can exercise. It's hard to get them to move, but the money amounts are now big enough to get their attention. Somebody needs to get a dialogue going between the JSA and the Bitcoin community. It has to be someone credible who speaks Japanese.
