Japan’s FSA Drafts Supervision Guidelines to Advise Funds Who are Investing into CryptoAssets

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) has published draft guidelines for funds investing in cryptocurrencies.

Japan is years ahead of the majority of the nations in the crypto game since they realized the potential in crypto back in 2017 and even legalized it for the public use. To give you a perspective, most of the so-called crypto-friendly nations only allows for business use of cryptos like exchanges and trading, while public use and a common mode of payment are very rare.

Currently, there are 19 licensed cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country. Of these, 3 were approved this year and the rest received their license back in 2017.

In the proposed guideline, they say:

“It is anticipated that financial products that invest in crypto assets (virtual currency) will be formed in the future. But there are also indications that investment in crypto assets is encouraging speculation. The agency believes that it should carefully handle the formation and sale of investment trusts that invest in such assets.”

According to the temporary update, the regulator believes that financial products that involve crypto investment will be made available to Japanese citizens in the future, but the body notes that there are indications that these kinds of investment options could trigger speculation.

The country has had its issues, the collapse of Mt Gox in 2014 and 2018 hack of the Coincheck exchange are the two main occurrences. In May, Japan passed a bill to amend two existing financial laws – the Funds Settlement Act and the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act – both of which govern cryptocurrency regulation. The legislation will come into effect in April 2020.