Japan pushes global counterparts to regulate cryptocurrencies like banks

Japan is urging the world’s regulators to treat crypto as strictly as they do banks, adding to the calls for tougher rules following the collapse of FTX.
 
“Crypto has become this big,” Mamoru Yanase, deputy director-general of the Financial Services Agency’s Strategy Development, said in an interview. “If you like to implement effective regulation, you have to do the same as you regulate and supervise traditional institutions.”
 
Japan’s regulator has “begun to urge” counterparts in the US, Europe and elsewhere to subject cryptocurrency exchanges to supervision that’s similar to those faced by banks and brokerages, according to Yanase. 

 

The country has been making its voice heard through the Financial Stability Board, an international body that’s working on global regulation of crypto asset activities, he said.
 
FTX’s bankruptcy have battered the crypto sector, highlighting gaps and differences in global digital-asset regulation. Japan’s rules have helped to shield investors, who are poised to be able to withdraw their funds from FTX’s local subsidiary next month. 
 
“What’s brought about the latest scandal isn’t crypto technology itself,” said Yanase. “It is loose governance, lax internal controls and the absence of regulation and supervision.”