Japan Enacts Regulation for Digital Currency Exchanges
The upper house of Japan's national legislature approved a bill on Wednesday to regulate domestic digital currency exchanges, a move that comes nearly two years after discussions about how to regulate the technology first began. According to a report by The Japan Times, the decision will now require digital currency exchange operators to register with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the government agency that oversees finance activities in the country. The action also comes with a grace period for businesses affected, as it will not come into force until one year from its approval.....
Related News
The Diet in Japan (the legislature consisting of the Lower and the Upper Houses) has passed a bill today that mandates the regulation of bitcoin and virtual currency exchanges by the Financial Services Agency (FSA) in Japan. Japan has enacted a bill today that will see the regulation of operators of virtual currency exchanges, a Japan Times report revealed. The revised law will see virtual currency exchange operators mandated to register with the Japanese Financial Services Agency. The bill also enables the agency to have the authority to conduct on-site inspections and will require....
Japan will soon have new regulations governing the Bitcoin industry as the Japanese parliament. Diet, the country’s bicameral legislature, approved a bill on regulation of virtual currency exchanges. The bill calls for a revision of the existing fund settlement laws originally designed for fiat currencies to accommodate Bitcoin and other digital currencies. By doing so, the government intends to offer better protection to digital currency users in the country. Japan has been in the forefront of the digital currency evolution. It is worth remembering that the world’s largest Bitcoin....
Members of Japan's national Diet, its bicameral legislature, proposed changes to current legislation today to include a definition for virtual currencies under domestic law. According to Nikkei, the definition sought to emphasize their "asset-like values" and use in online payments. The text reportedly suggests bitcoin's similarities to fiat currencies such as the US dollar and yen, though, according to Reuters it has been defined as "property value". The change, if passed, would mean digital currency exchanges would have to register with Japan's Financial Services....
Japan's ruling political party has announced that it is against regulating bitcoin for the time being. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) made the statement as an interim measure, but the final decision will be made after hearing "more opinions" on the matter, said LDP lawmaker Takuya Hirai. "Basically, we concluded that we will, for now, avoid a move towards legal regulation," Hirai told Reuters. Mt. Gox fallout. Following the highly publicised collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, Japanese authorities found themselves in the glare of the world's media spotlight. The exchange was....
If a report from Nikkei Asian Review is to be believed, Bitcoin exchanges operating in Japan may soon have to get registered with the government, be open to external audits, and put in place adequate consumer protection measures. Japan has been dilly-dallying with its stance on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but the first draft of cryptocurrency regulations may bring much-needed clarity into the picture. We had previously reported that Japan is working towards a regulatory bill for Bitcoin by early 2016. A Financial Services Agency (FSA) panel is slated to discuss the regulation....