Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform, relaunched services in Japan on August 1. It offers purchase and withdrawals of cryptocurrencies utilizing Japanese Yen, supporting the trade of 34 tokens, including most popular ones such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Japan has had very clear regulations since 2017 with crypto exchange regulations, and more recently, this year, with its crypto listing framework,” explained Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao in an address last month. “Binance is extremely happy to be able to participate in the Japanese market again.”
Binance, which was originally based in China, had previously operated in Japan, but the Financial Services Agency ordered it to stop trading without a license in 2018.
Last November, Binance acquired Sakura Exchange BitCoin, a licensed local platform, and changed its name to Binance Japan.
On the other hand, Kraken and Coinbase, the two largest global cryptocurrency exchange platforms besides Binance, both halted their operations in Japan earlier this year.
Coinbase announced its withdrawal in January, explaining that “due to market conditions, our company has made the difficult decision to halt operations in Japan and to conduct a complete review of our business in the country.”
The decision by Binance to reenter Japan thus runs counter to the recent trend.
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