[2018-07-17] World’s First Bank-Owned Crypto Exchange Launches Publicly in Japan

[ivanpoldark]

Nearly two years after its initial announcement and months of delays this year, the world’s first bank-owned cryptocurrency exchange finally sees its public launch in Japan.

With an announcement on Tuesday, Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings has formally launched its cryptocurrency exchange platform, dubbed ‘VCTRADE’.

As reported by CCN in early June, SBI first announced a limited launch of the exchange for some 20,000 pre-registered users – enrolled during an early alpha last year – while holding off on a wider public launch in Japan, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading markets where exchanges are required to be licensed under regulatory laws.

SBI Holdings, through its wholly-owned subsidiary SBI Virtual Currencies – the operator of VCTRADE – has now begun accepting applications from Japanese users for new accounts. The public launch sees the bank-backed cryptocurrency exchange open its doors for all Japanese residents between 20-70 years. At this time, the exchange is only accepting retail investors with no applications from corporate or institutional investors currently under consideration.

During its preliminary launch last month, VCTRADE initially offered trading of XRP, Ripple’s native token that powers the Ripple Consensus Ledger (RCL). SBI Holdings is intrinsically partnered with Ripple with its crypto foray, jointly-operating SBI Ripple Asia with the San Francisco-based FinTech giant to explore the application of Ripple’s blockchain tech and XRP in remittance flows among Asian markets.

Within weeks, VCTRADE also added support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH/JPY) and Bitcoin (BTC/JYP), a total of three cryptocurrencies support so far since its preliminary launch in early June.

As reported previously, SBI postponed the launch of its exchange in early 2018 despite completing its registration and acquiring a license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan’s financial regulator, in September 2017.

The financial giant determined it had to strengthen its security measures further – in the aftermath of an infamous $530 million hack of Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck in January – as justifiable cause for the self-enforced delay earlier this year.

The SBI Group first announced its intent to launch its in-house cryptocurrency exchange in October 2016, making it the first mainstream traditional financial institution to enter the crypto space.

“In recent years, virtual currencies, like bitcoin, have attracted plenty of interest and have been covered in major media,” the company said at the time. “It [cryptocurrencies] are also being traded actively.”

https://www.ccn.com/worlds-first-bank-owned-cryptocurrency-exchange-launches-publicly-in-japan/

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[Theb]

There is nothing bad about this news, a bank-owned cryptocurrency exchange will in fact give more assurance to its investors and traders. Knowing that a bank is the one who is operating and managing the cryptocurrency exchange you know that your funds is safe in your portfolio. Another thing is that it is properly licensed by the Japanese government which clearly means that it is backed up by their own government. SBI holdings is a big bank company in Japan, having a stock value of 24.87$ in USD they are a top performer. A big company like SBI will go a long way when it comes to influencing other companies on joining their views.

[matuson]

I don't believe that news for a long time. I'm cold to Japan. I used to think that this is the most cryptocurrency-friendly country and the victorious March of bitcoin around the world will start with Japan. But after a lot of exchanges have declared problems with registration in Japan and changed the place of the main registration, I treat Japan as well as other countries. They're no better than that.

[Kemarit]

No one should be surprised by this news as we all know that Japan really embraces crypto and adopted it. And this is really good news for the crypto enthusiast as well, as this might be a good use case to see how crypto with the full backing of a reputable banks will do in the next couple of years. And it looks like they are not just targeting crypto traders, but exploring other areas such as remittance. This is a 2 year project and I'm sure that they will taking care of their customers will be their number 1 priority because you don't want that 2 years go to drain because you fail to deliver and please your user base.

[hatshepsut93]

No one should be surprised by this news as we all know that Japan really embraces crypto and adopted it. And this is really good news for the crypto enthusiast as well, as this might be a good use case to see how crypto with the full backing of a reputable banks will do in the next couple of years. And it looks like they are not just targeting crypto traders, but exploring other areas such as remittance. This is a 2 year project and I'm sure that they will taking care of their customers will be their number 1 priority because you don't want that 2 years go to drain because you fail to deliver and please your user base.

Japan made their exchanges delist privacy coins like Monero and Dash. To me it doesn't sound like they are genuinely support crypto because they want people to be economically free. Japanese government just likes technology, and they think they can regulate it, but what will they do when Bitcoin and maybe some other coins will update their protocols for better privacy? I don't trust a single government in this world to truly adopt Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is anarchy.

[Tylev]

No one should be surprised by this news as we all know that Japan really embraces crypto and adopted it. And this is really good news for the crypto enthusiast as well, as this might be a good use case to see how crypto with the full backing of a reputable banks will do in the next couple of years. And it looks like they are not just targeting crypto traders, but exploring other areas such as remittance. This is a 2 year project and I'm sure that they will taking care of their customers will be their number 1 priority because you don't want that 2 years go to drain because you fail to deliver and please your user base.

Japan made their exchanges delist privacy coins like Monero and Dash. To me it doesn't sound like they are genuinely support crypto because they want people to be economically free. Japanese government just likes technology, and they think they can regulate it, but what will they do when Bitcoin and maybe some other coins will update their protocols for better privacy? I don't trust a single government in this world to truly adopt Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is anarchy.

Each country, when introducing a crypto currency in its economy, tries to observe its own interests. There is nothing surprising in this. It should be taken into account that any state will treat the crypto currency if not hostile, then at least with great care and suspicion. Decentralized crypto currency is generally unprofitable for any state, because it is uncontrolled and has great volatility. If the government of China stated this directly, Japan applies practical measures to comply with its interests and more stringent regulation of the crypto currency without loud statements. I think that all states will eventually act about the same.

[Slow death]

I don't believe that news for a long time. I'm cold to Japan. I used to think that this is the most cryptocurrency-friendly country and the victorious March of bitcoin around the world will start with Japan. But after a lot of exchanges have declared problems with registration in Japan and changed the place of the main registration, I treat Japan as well as other countries. They're no better than that.

this is what happens when we have exchange that is not regulated and inspected by governments:

YOBIT Scam Exchange

Yobit Scam withholding 10BTC

yobit.net is scam

YOBIT delaying transaction to profit from POS interest -

Hitbtc scammed me +100K and have disable my account!!