In a recent announcement from the JVCEA, the self regulated group stated that two of their vice chairmen had received official orders from the Japanese Financial Services Authority (FSA) 4 days ago, along with 4 other exchanges, because of insufficient customer checks and poor risk management.
“In response to the fact that vice chairmen of the association, Yuzo Kano and Hiroyuki Noriyuki, representative directors of Bitflyer Co. Ltd. and Bitbank Corporation, received business improvement orders concerning their virtual currency exchange businesses, we inform you that we have received resignation requests from both of the vice presidents on this date and have accepted them.”
At this stage no replacements have been confirmed for the two empty director seats, and with the FSA’s grip tightening around Japanese exchanges we could see more Japanese exchanges withdraw from the market, like we did with Tokyo Gateway and Mr. Exchange earlier in March.
For now it’s back to business as usual, with the JVCEA promising it’s native investor community that these recent developments have been in their best interests, in maintaining a safe environment for digital asset trading.
“We will continue to do our utmost to protect the interests of users and to promote the sound development of the virtual currency exchange industry, including the early establishment of voluntary regulation rules.”
Getting the balance right between creating an effective regulatory framework for customer safety while also encouraging the development of Japan’s crypto trading infrastructure continues to be a difficult and contentious area for the country’s financial regulators.
After the devastating Coincheck hack, authorities have been forced to take more aggressive regulatory action in ensuring customer security is of the highest level, but in doing are also creating more hoops for crypto exchanges to jump through. It will be interesting to see how the Japanese crypto ecosystem deals with this increasing regulatory pressure, and whether it will fold under the weight of the FSA’s new impositions or evolve into a more resilient crypto infrastructure as a result.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
