Japan Set to Be Major Funding Source for Blockchain Companies
Japanese regulations have restricted banks’ abilities to invest in fintech startups, including Bitcoin and blockchain companies. However, that is about to change. Japan’s biggest banks are now reportedly looking to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fintech, including blockchain companies. Japan’s Banking Law Removes Funding Limits. The....
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Japan's largest bitcoin exchange by volume has announced a new round of fundraising. In a press release today, Tokyo-based Bitflyer revealed it had raised new capital from financial firms including Sumitomo Mitsui, Mizuho Financial Group and Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company. A report by Japan-based news source Nikkei indicated that the funding equalled roughly ¥200m ($1.76m). According to statements from the startup, the fundraising follows BitFlyer's work with Sumitomo and Mizuho on private blockchain solutions aimed at providing the core infrastructure for enterprise use cases. Notably,....
GMO has a very wide reach in Japan, as they are the largest credit card payment processor to date. Japan continues to make significant strides in the Bitcoin department. With the trading volume on the rise recently, it becomes more important for users to have access to a proper Bitcoin wallet. GMO, one of Japan’s largest internet companies, is launching their own cryptocurrency wallet service. This is a major validation of Bitcoin as a currency, and heralds bigger and better things to come for cryptocurrency in Japan.. Up until this point, Japan has been somewhat quiet on the Bitcoin....
Legislation making bitcoin and virtual currencies legal currency took effect this month in Japan. The country’s Financial Services Agency released a text of the law last week. The Accounting Standards Board of Japan will create a framework to determine how the accounting sector can address digital currency. According to the Nikkei, the process is expected to take six months. Accounting Standards Still Needed. Many companies expressed concern that the government has not provided guidance for the accounting of cryptocurrencies. Chikako Suzuki, a partner at PwC Aarata, told Nikkei Asian....
Interested in venture capital funding and bitcoin startups? Well, it seems that the secret has been in the market price for bitcoins. As in, the higher the price that bitcoins are, the more funding that seems to pour out of VCs and into bitcoin exchanges, wallets and other companies built around bitcoin. The common thread seems to be that, with the exception of Tradehill, major funding went into bitcoin-influenced startups once the price went higher than $100 per BTC. VC Funding Numbers: CrunchBase. BTC prices are from funding date: Bitcoin Charts. Now, anyone who knows a bit about venture....
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank and financial regulator, has now entered a FinTech partnership with its Japanese counterpart, the Financial Services Agency (FSA). The move sees the two countries to establish a FinTech cooperation framework. Announced yesterday, the financial regulators from the two major Asian economic hubs have fundamentally reduced the barriers for entry of FinTech companies in their countries enter each other’s markets. “Technology and innovation remain key enablers of financial sector growth in Singapore and Japan,” stated MAS....