August 15, 2019 @ 11:11 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Wirex, a hybrid personal finance platform that merges blockchain tech and traditional finance, announced on Thursday it has become a type II member of the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA). Wirex claims that becoming a type II member is a vital and hard-earned step… Read More

August 10, 2019 @ 3:26 pm By Cali Haan  |  

About 15 countries are collaborating on a system to collect and share identifying data about individuals trading cryptocurrencies, Nikkei Asian Review reports. The news follows other reports this week that Japan’s Ministry of Finance and Financial Services Agency (FSA) have offered to build a regulated global network… Read More

August 8, 2019 @ 10:31 am By JD Alois  |  

Regulated crypto exchange SBI VC (spun out from SoftBank), based in Japan, is now FATF compliant. Earlier this year FATF announced a set of requirements regarding “virtual asset service providers” or VASPs (mainly crypto exchanges). These new rules require the tracking and storing of all… Read More

August 7, 2019 @ 4:03 am By Cali Haan  |  

Japan financial authorities are building a regulated global network for cryptocurrency transfers and trades similar to SWIFT, an anonymous source from the Japanese governments has told Reuters. The system will be developed in cooperation with other countries sand should launch within a few years. Reuters… Read More

July 30, 2019 @ 2:01 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Ripple, a provider of enterprise blockchain solutions for payments, announced on Tuesday it has expanded its University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) to Japan. According to Ripple, the expansion brings on new partners including Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo. While sharing more details about… Read More

July 12, 2019 @ 4:55 pm By Cali Haan  |  

More than a hundred proposed “crypto asset” exchange projects are seeking permission to operate in Japan, according to information furnished to Bitcoin.com by an official from Japan’s financial market regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA). “The number of crypto asset exchange service providers which have… Read More

July 12, 2019 @ 10:06 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Bitpoint, a licensed cryptocurrency exchange based in Japan, has reportedly shut down operations following a hack that caused the platform to lose ¥3.5 billion yen ($32 million) in cryptocurrency.  According to Bloomberg, The exchange revealed about 2.5 billion yen of stolen funds belonged to customers,… Read More

July 4, 2019 @ 1:13 am By Cali Haan  |  

Officials at the Bank of Japan, Japan’s central bank, are reportedly concerned that Facebook’s new “difficult to regulate” cryptocurrency could have a calamitous effect on global financial systems, all while exploiting those very systems without paying the costs, Nikkei Asian Review (NAR) reports. Legislators in… Read More

June 29, 2019 @ 8:59 am By JD Alois  |  

The V20 Summit, a crypto focused event taking place alongside the G20 in Japan, has announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by a “group of key national trade associations” to create a single association to provide a unified, global voice representing “Virtual Asset Service… Read More

June 24, 2019 @ 12:35 pm By JD Alois  |  

Later this week the V20 conference will take place alongside the bi-annual G20 event being hosted in Japan. The G20 is, of course, the global powwow of 19 leading nations plus the EU. While mostly a lot of hobnobbing and back-room policy wrangling, while in… Read More

June 21, 2019 @ 7:10 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is out with their “Guidance for a Risk-based Approach: Virtual Assets and Virtual Service Providers.” This guidance, which was widely expected to be released today, should be rubber-stamped at next week’s G20 meeting in Japan. The proposals included in… Read More

June 18, 2019 @ 9:49 am By JD Alois  |  

Securitize and the Japan Security Token Association (JSTA), an association advocating for a compliant digital securities industry, have partnered to accelerate the adoption of digital securities in Japan. According to a release, Securitize and JSTA will work closely with financial institutions and businesses to educate… Read More

June 10, 2019 @ 2:57 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Finance Ministers from the world’s 20 most powerful economies have “…reaffirm(ed) (their) commitment to applying the recently amended FATF Standards to virtual assets and related providers for AML (anti-money laundering) and CFT (anti-terrorist finance),” in a communique issued from a meeting they held this weekend… Read More

June 7, 2019 @ 1:46 am By Cali Haan  |  

Leaders from the 20 most powerful economies in the world may discuss creating a global regulatory framework for “crypto assets” at their forthcoming meeting in Osaka in June (G20 2019 Japan), and “Virtual Asset Service Providers” (VASPSs) are holding their own concurrent meeting (V20), “…to deliver… Read More

June 5, 2019 @ 9:41 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Mark Karpeles, the man whose incompetence many believe resulted in the destruction of early Bitcoin-exchange Mt Gox and the loss of almost $500 million USD of Mt Gox user funds, is starting a new “blockchain” venture, AP News reports. Karpeles recently beat tremendous odds and… Read More

June 2, 2019 @ 9:49 am By Cali Haan  |  

Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from the globe’s twenty most powerful economies are “expected” to collaborate on creating a global registry of cryptocurrency exchanges when they meet at the G20 Conference in Fukuoka, Japan, in June, Nikkei Asian Review (NAR) reports. G20 government personnel meeting… Read More

May 29, 2019 @ 9:41 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Blockchain security company CipherTrace announced on Wednesday it has formed a new partnership with Rakuten Wallet, a subsidiary of Rakuten Group, a global company that operates an e-commerce site in Japan, to assure anti-money laundering (AML) compliance for the Rakuten’s highly anticipated cryptocurrency exchange. According… Read More

April 24, 2019 @ 2:08 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Wall Street Journal has reported this week that, on the advice of “a Bitcoin evangelist,” Softbank founder Masayoshi Son invested big in Bitcoins at the height of the market, then lost $130 million when he sold his position as the coin began to crash…. Read More

April 23, 2019 @ 12:15 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The Japanese agency responsible for overseeing the country’s banking, insurance and securities sectors conducted flash on-site inspections last week at local offices of the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange and at the FISCO Virtual Currency Exchange (formerly Zaif), Reuters Japan reports. Regulators from the Financial Services Agency… Read More

April 21, 2019 @ 9:55 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Just a little over seven months after being hacked for an estimated ¥6.7 billion yen ($60 million), Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif is reportedly set to resumed activity. As previously reported, the infamous hack occurred on Friday, September 14th, when the hackers broke into Zaif exchange… Read More