According to a warning letter published by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA), Bitget, Bybit, BitForex, and MEXC are allegedly operating in the country without a license or official registration.
The Japanese regulators stated in the warning that the aforementioned foreign exchanges are violating the country’s fund settlement law by operating illegally in the country. The FSA also clarified that the list of unregistered traders does not truly reflect the current state of unregistered businesses in Japan.
Japan Ups Its Regulatory Ante
Japan’s FSA has recently upped its crypto regulation crackdown following the recent regulatory flaws in the industry. The East Asian country is currently working on a new regulation for the crypto and web3 sectors.
In 2020, the FSA released a new crypto regulation requiring that exchanges register with it and get licensed before resuming operation in Japan. The country has continually shown that the issues surrounding money laundering and cyber theft are a big concern following increased occurrences of these actions.
Despite what seems to be an increased scrutiny by Japan, it still falls below the current tightening used by other countries like the US on crypto assets. Following the FTX demise, US regulators have extensively cracked down on digital assets, shutting down certain crypto services and fining erring exchanges excessively high amounts of money.
Bitget Responds
In response, crypto exchange, Bitget, noted that it would contact the FSA to get further information pertaining to the warning issued.
“Bitget operates through BG Limited, a Seychelles-registered company. As a global crypto exchange, we are following the rules and regulations in Seychelles,” Bitget’s representative stated.
Bitget maintained that its operations would continue as normal and that it would update its customers if there were any changes. The FSA issued a formal warning letter to Binance and Bybit in 2021 for illegal operations in the country.
