Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) is pressuring local cryptocurrency markets to delist privacy-centric altcoins like Monero, Zcash, and Dash.
Writing in Forbes, Tokyo-based journalist Jake Adelstein reviews that sources close to this FSA state the regulatory agency — with sole power to grant licenses to cryptocurrency trades — will be “taking all available steps” to force nationally trading platforms to lose support for altcoins that tout the means for users to produce anonymous transactions.
The FSA asserts these cryptocurrencies, which are often a whole lot more complicated to track than Bitcoin (though in some cases still possible, due to user error and other factors), have become too closely linked with the criminal underworld.
Monero, for instance, is increasingly associated with “cryptojacking” attacks, where hackers infect computers with malware that hijack CPUs and use them to mine cryptocurrency.
“It should be seriously discussed as to whether any registered cryptocurrency exchange should be allowed to use such currencies,” a member of an FSA-sponsored cryptocurrency working group reportedly said in a meeting on April 10.
At present, there is no standard prohibition on dealing or easing anonymous cryptocurrencies’ buying and selling. But the FSA’s warfare on altcoins appears to be having some accomplishment.
Coincheck, which was the victim of a record breaking hack at January and was later acquired by Western brokerage Monex, quietly delisted Monero and also two lesser-known altcoins which claim to be anonymous, presumably in a last-ditch bid to convince the FSA that it had cleaned up its act and deserved to be granted a license.
As CCN reported, Japan’s licensed cryptocurrency exchanges recently formed a self-regulatory body that will have enforcement power over its members. Among other things, the organization may curate a whitelist of cryptocurrencies that exchanges are allowed to list, which would provide the FSA with an easy avenue to pressure exchanges to de-list cryptoassets of which it does not approve without having to codify the prohibition into official policy.
