This is the right way to go in my opinion. Regulate cryptocurrency businesses, but as much as possible, leave the users alone. This way, they're basically treating it like fiat in a sense where most of their users just want to go on with their lives and that they're usually the victims of abuse by businesses.
They might tell the media they embrace crypto but exchanges wouldn't have left the country if they felt welcome in the country.
Funny you should mention Kraken feeling unwelcome when they themselves actually think Japanese regulations are a step in the right direction:
While Japan’s VC Act isn’t perfect, it is a good example of what (relatively) reasonable regulation can do for a country. Huge, traditional financial services are rushing in to crypto. For them, certainty is everything and now they have it. Japan’s crypto market is sure to be highly competitive, which is a great thing for consumers. I have to give the FSA in Japan a tremendous amount of credit for getting it together. They are a fine regulator to work with. Hopefully, Kraken will find an opportunity to re-enter the market in the near future.
They also go into some detail as to why they left Japan in the article, and it's definitely not because they felt unwelcome.
Yeah but the same article has 10 things Kraken couldnt DO that the regulator requested...some of them not possible...
Kraken’s recent response to the NYAG’s questionnaire should not be taken as an indication that Kraken is opposed to working with government. The problems with the NYAG’s request are as follows:
The deadline of 2 weeks is unreasonable given the scope.
The publication of the request, lack of any prior communication and inclusion of exchanges which are clearly outside of the AG’s jurisdiction (including Kraken) raise questions about the true motive. It comes off as a publicity stunt.
The request is ill-prepared. It’s an overly broad fishing expedition that asks questions irrelevant to the stated objective and misses obvious questions that actually would be helpful.
Much of this information was already provided to the NYDFS in 2014.
Much of this information was already provided to FinCEN in our 2017 audit.
Much of this information is publicly available on our website.
Some of this information is proprietary, trade secret information and kept confidential for competitive reasons.
Some of this information is highly sensitive and kept confidential for security reasons.
It is not clear that the complete production can remain private, especially given the government’s recent track record of getting hacked.
The AG demands Kraken, which has no NY clients, to assist in protecting NY consumers (presumably against those who have obtained the BitLicense), without offering any sort of compensation for the professional consulting work.
And it doesn't seem Japan has made any effort to make it easier for exchanges since that time to actually do business there.
