Japan’s FSA & Crypto Exchange Association Meet June 27: Privacy Coins Future

There are several virtual currencies in the market, some of them have been created to process fast transactions, while others to protect users’ privacy. And these called ‘privacy coins’ have been in the eye of regulators because they can be used to launder money and finance criminal activities.

Japan wants to take stricter measures to control the market, and the country’s self-regulatory body, which is known as the Crypto Exchange Association, is proposing new rules. The topics that will now be controlled are insider trading and anonymous coins such as Monero, Dash, Zcash or Bitcoin Private.

At the same time, the watchdog, FSA, decided to issue improvement orders to five different crypto exchanges viz. bitFlyer, Quoine, Bitbank, BtcBox, and BITPoint Japan.

The main intention behind these measures is to take care of investors and, also, have a bigger control on the market. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) conducted different inspections in crypto exchanges and believes that these institutions have flaws like lack of appropriate money laundering measures.

Moreover, it is important to mention that anonymous cryptocurrencies may be prohibited in the near future. The self-regulatory agency believes that in this way it will be possible to improve transparency and consumer protection.

The association will be voting about this issue on June the 27th. The rules may be adopted as soon as the association gets recognized as a regulatory body by the FSA.

In the past, the cryptocurrency Zcash, which is part of the privacy coins, has been accepted at the Gemini exchange. This is a very important information coming from the United States, because the exchange is one of the most regulated in the country and the first licensed Zcash exchange in the world.

With the latest regulations to be implemented in Japan, exchanges will not be able to list these currencies anymore.

Finally, exchanges will be required to implement circuit breakers in order to stop trading if there is any sudden plunge or surge in the prices of cryptocurrencies.