Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (the FSA) has registered a new crypto organization consisting of at least 16 crypto exchanges that are fully approved and licensed by government authorities. The association seeks to establish self-regulatory rules. It will also have authority to sanction members who do not comply with its regulations and conduct investigations.
All the 16 exchanges in the new organization dubbed the Japan Virtual Currency Association are registered by the FSA, and they recently held a meeting in which they chose a director, reports Jiji Press.
Media reports have revealed that the association intends to elect Taizen Okuyama who is currently the President of Money Partners as its Chairperson. The election will be conducted during the next meeting of the Board of Directors scheduled for 23rd April this year. Sources privy to the association’s developments say it will be launched on the same date.
Jiji Press quoted some members of the new organization saying that they intend to establish strict rules for the member crypto exchanges and as an association, they will “have authority to conduct investigations and banish member exchanges found culpable of non-compliance.”
Founding members
The founding members of the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association are sixteen approved and fully licensed crypto exchanges conducting operations in Japan. They include Money Partners, Quoine, Bitflyer, GMO Coin, Btcbox, SBI Virtual Currencies, Zaif, Fisco Virtual Currency, Bitocean, Xtheta Corporation, Bitarg Exchange Tokyo Company Ltd., Tokyo Bitcoin Exchange (also called DMM Bitcoin), Bittrade, Bitbank, FTT Corporation, and Bitpoint.
This crypto association becomes the third to be formally registered in Japan after the JCBA (Japan Cryptocurrency Business Association) and the JBA (Japan Blockchain Association). The latter is headed by Yuzo Kano, Bitflyer’s CEO while the President of Money Partners Group heads the former.
Sources reveal that the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association shall be a member of both the JCBA and the JBA, both of which shall continue their normal operations. Some cryptocurrency trading platforms like the recently hacked Coincheck and GMO Coin are members of both the JBA and the JCBA.
While all the members of the new organization are approved by the Financial Services Agency, some members of the JCBA and JBA are “deemed dealers” (exchanges that the FSA has allowed to operate pending review of their applications for registration). One of such exchanges is Coincheck.
The Japanese financial watchdog is presently tightening its rules regarding deemed dealers. Professor Masashi Nakajima of Reitaku University operating in the regulator’s research group recently said that many users do not know that Coincheck is unlicensed.
“I ask for mechanisms which are easy to identify at a glance so you can indicate what exchange is unlicensed like posting on the exchanges’ websites,” one local news outlet, the Sankeibiz quoted the professor to have said.
The cryptocurrency community has welcomed this move, with most stakeholders being optimistic that it will help the cryptocurrency industry in Japan. Again, this development will likely help Japanese financial regulators regarding the control of crypto operations in the country.
