Japan's FSA launching cryptocurrency industry purge

Japanese regulator suspends the operation of two cryptocurrency exchanges
Six operators face penalties, some of them withdraw license applications

Tanya Abrosimova Independent Analyst

Japanese Financial Services Agency goes on with cryptocurrency industry inspections and investigations. The regulator ordered Coincheck - the cryptocurrency exchange that lost over $530M of clients' funds due to hacker attack - to implement further improvements, including management structure and anti-laundering procedures.

Following the briefing that took place on Thursday, March 8, the FSA decided to suspend the operations of FSHO and bit station for a month and penalize six other exchanges, including GMO Coin, Zaif, Bicrements and Mr. Exchange.

The onsite inspection of GMO carried out on February 13, revealed failures to investigate the causes of several system faults and take appropriate preventive measures. Now the company has to submit the plan of improvements to the regulator by March 22.
Several exchanges, penalized by FSA, including Bit station and bitExpress, withdrew their licensing applications amid the tightened approach of the regulator.

The news comes after the decision of the US Securities and Exchanges Commision to have all online trading platforms registered as exchanges.

Author

Tanya Abrosimova

Independent Analyst

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