🇯🇵 Crypto licence in Japan

The regime

Japan's Payment Services Act registration for crypto-asset exchange service providers is the oldest major licensing regime, live since April 2017. Custody rules are among the world's strictest — segregation with an approximately 95% cold-storage requirement and reimbursement obligations — tightened after the Mt. Gox and 2018 Coincheck incidents.

Registered exchanges also join the JVCEA self-regulatory body, which screens token listings. Reform work continues on moving crypto under the securities-law umbrella (FIEA), which would change disclosure, insider-trading and tax treatment.

Requirements

• Registration with the FSA as a crypto-asset exchange service provider under the Payment Services Act (stock company with ¥10 million minimum capital and positive net assets).
• Custody: segregation of customer crypto and fiat, roughly 95% of customer crypto in cold wallets, and an obligation to hold matching assets against the hot-wallet portion.
• JVCEA membership and its listing-screening rules for new tokens.
• AML/CTF: Travel Rule implementation and transaction monitoring under the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds.

Licensed firms

FSA-registered exchanges include:

• bitFlyer — registered since the first 2017 cohort
• Coincheck — registered exchange, Monex group
• bitbank — registered exchange
• SBI VC Trade — registered exchange, SBI group

Snapshot, not the register: verify current status against FSA list of registered providers before relying on it.

Why are Japan's custody rules so strict?

They were written in the shadow of Mt. Gox (2014) and the ¥58 billion Coincheck hack (2018). The regime forces segregation, cold storage of roughly 95% of customer crypto and reimbursement backing for the remainder.

Is Japan moving crypto under securities law?

The FSA has been advancing a reform to shift crypto-assets from the Payment Services Act toward the securities framework (FIEA), which would bring disclosure and insider-trading rules and is linked to the debate on flattening crypto's tax rate.