The Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) just announced that they have approved 11 bitcoin exchanges to officially operate within the country. It had become necessary for the Exchanges to become licensed by the FSA after the earlier legalization of Bitcoin and it´s acceptance as an official way of payment.
Nonetheless the FSA stated that the Bitcoin exchanges are under "full surveillance", so that on-site inspections or other controls might take place at any time. Especially as the registration with the FSA requires the Exchanges to fulfill additional security guidelines like segregating funds in customer accounts or identity versification´s in order to combat money-laundering via an anonymous Blockchain.
Right now the FSA only licensed 11 exchanges, among which we may as well find the bigger Exchanges bitFlyer and Quoine. 17 Others are still waiting for their official approval as their applications are still to be reviewed by the FSA.
(Source - Cryptocoinsnews.com)
Just some months after Bitcoin got legalized in Japan and declared an official payment option we may now read about Japanese Exchanges being officially licensed. It´s definitely a great step and it just seems like the Japanese Officials are the only ones who really understand the value and benefit of CryptoCurrencies as well as the huge Potential they hold.
Of course there is as well a downside that some might criticize as the official adaption as well leads to more control and identification within the Blockchain. It´s not as anonymous anymore like it intends to be but at least in my opinion that´s a price I´m willing to pay as long as we can control our money on our own instead of using any banks.
As there is no other country adapting Bitcoin or CryptoCurrencies in such big steps it´s very likely that Japan will sooner or later become the central Hub of Crypto in Asia and maybe even in general. After the closure of many Chinese exchanges a lot of Trading Volume shifted from there to Japan already and I´m very positive that the next good news from Japan are just around the corner.
