The Japanese crypto exchange BTCBOX has announced that it plans to list dogecoin (DOGE) – a huge first for the token in Japan, considering the trading platform is registered with the regulatory Financial Services Agency (FSA).
In a tweet, BTCBOX stated that it would list DOGE “before the end of April” – and would release further details soon.
The firm added that DOGE pairings would be offered as part of its “Easy Trading” offering.
Back in the days before the FSA took over the policing of the Japanese exchange sector, exchanges were essentially unregulated and were free to add all the altcoins they liked to their platforms. But in September 2017, the FSA began obliging exchanges to abide by strict compliance regulations (including a number of listing protocols), forcing offenders to suspend or close down their businesses.
Part of this regulatory drive centered around the coins that could be listed on platforms, a matter that the FSA has continued to weigh in on.
Listing policy has since been overseen by the self-regulatory Japan Virtual and Cryptoassets Exchange Association (JVCEA) – a body comprising all of the nation’s FSA-licenced exchanges. This body has – rather painstakingly – considered all new coin listing applications on a one-by-one basis, leading to massive backlogs for those wishing to list new coins.
As previously reported, the JVCEA now plans to streamline its process – aware that this cautious approach means that Japanese crypto customers can only trade in some 20 coins on domestic platforms. Would-be DOGE traders, for instance, have been obliged to use overseas platforms.
Even doing this, however, has been fraught with difficulty: the FSA has repeatedly warned off overseas crypto exchanges that court Japanese custom by adding Japanese-language in-app services and providing customer assistance in Japanese.
The JVCEA plans to create a “green list” of 18 “popular cryptocurrencies” later this month. It also plans to create a rule that would allow exchanges to list tokens already on rival platforms. As such, should BTCBOX’s DOGE listing go according to plan, other Japanese trading platforms could well use the precedent to follow suit in the months to come.
Kabosu – the Shiba Inu dog featured in the original meme that gave birth to DOGE – is Japanese, and was adopted by a kindergarten teacher named Atsuko Sato in 2008, before becoming an internet celebrity both at home and overseas.
Source: Cryptonews
