Japan’s FSA grants Virtual Currency Exchange Association rights to self-regulate crypto

The FSA determined that the organization will set up rules for the regulation of member exchanges, and guard against threats to the legitimacy of cryptocurrency, like money laundering and insider trading.

A self-regulating body

The JVCEA, which is a consortium of 16 FSA-approved cryptocurrency exchanges, was launched in April with the aim of achieving consistency between exchanges by acting as a self-regulating body in the cryptocurrency industry.

Taizen Okuyama serves as chairman of the association, in addition to his role as President of Money Partners — a listed company that offers Forex trading and is also registered as a cryptocurrency exchange.

Some of the companies that are members of the association include SBI Virtual Currencies Co, a cryptocurrency exchange under SBI Holdings; GMO Coin under the GMO Internet Group’s GMO Financial Holdings, and Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange Inc under the financial information distribution company FISCO Group.

Even though the FSA has recently made the screening process for new exchanges more strict, there are more than 160 companies waiting to be registered with the FSA as cryptocurrency exchange operators, and 50 companies already in the process of registration. All member companies that are registered as cryptocurrency exchange operators by the FSA will be subject to regulation by the association.

Improving Japan’s tax environment

The JVCEA will also help the government to simplify taxes, and submitted relevant materials to the FSA at a meeting on the tax environment held by Japan’s Cabinet Office on October 24th.

The materials submitted listed policy proposals related to filing final tax returns for 2018, including; plans for the National Tax Agency to provide a sheet for statement of accounts for cryptocurrency to individual taxpayers; a policy for the companies that operate cryptocurrency exchanges to provide an annual report that enables customers to easily create a statement of accounts; and a policy of providing transaction history data to customers when requested.

The JVCEA also made clear that cryptocurrency exchanges should adopt a policy of disclosure on their websites.