To further cement the idea that interest in crypto has increased in Japan, the island’s Consumer Affairs Agency filed a new report showing a marked increase in cryptocurrency and ICO inquiries. This data was shared with the Financial Services Agency during a meeting in which the CAA was attempting to make a case for an increase in interest among consumers the cryptocurrency space.
The year 2017 saw the agency busy with 2769 cases regarding cryptocurrencies and ICOs, compared to the 847 cases in the previous year. This is roughly a 3.27-times increase. When separating consultancy requests by gender, there’s little difference, with females making up 2082 consultation cases and males making up 2042.
The FSA noted that most of the inquiries had much to do with the security practices of exchanges and concerns regarding whether an ICO is legitimate or not. It makes sense to get these kinds of requests, as Japan has already suffered two different breaches that were very costly.
First, there was the Mt. Gox incident in 2014 that cost $450 million at the time. But now, the memory of the $500 million Coincheck hack is fresh in Japanese traders’ minds, overtaking Mt. Gox as the greatest cryptocurrency breach in history by volume of fiat money lost.
Concerns about security have left agencies like the FSA scrambling to find ways to better regulate the ecosystem and ensure that they can prevent another such attack from happening. In March, the agency even went as far as to send a notice to Binance, warning it for operating without a license. This move may have been the reason for Bitcoin slipping in the latter half of March.
Despite all of this, the report by CAA shows that the Japanese public is still interested in engaging with cryptocurrencies, albeit with a more cautious approach.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest
