Japan needs more convincing of the merits for making cryptocurrency investing easier for its population, the nation’s top regulator said.
While Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) Commissioner Junichi Nakajima said he is open-minded about the potential benefits that assets such as bitcoin possess as a quick and cheap way to send cash, in Japan they are mainly being used for speculation and investment, not as a means of transferring money.
New challenges are coming from a broader proliferation of firms involved in decentralized finance, he said.
“We need to consider carefully whether it is necessary to make it easier for the general public to invest in crypto assets,” said Nakajima, 58, who became head of Japan’s financial regulator last month.
Unlike in the US, where investors now have a multitude of ways to invest in the burgeoning asset class, Japan remains heavily restricted by comparison.
The FSA last month set up a study group of outside experts and is expected to consider regulatory responses to decentralized finance in the coming months, with investors looking to Nakajima for clues on the outlook.
Nakajima was involved in crafting Japan’s first regulatory framework on cryptocurrency assets, including the registration requirement for exchanges in 2017.
The nation has since tightened up, following a massive coin theft at Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck Inc in 2018, which revealed lax internal control and customer protection.
While Nakajima said that the current regulatory framework on cryptocurrency exchanges has been effective in customer protection and countering money laundering, many of the 31 registered exchanges are struggling financially.
Their business situation “is rather tough,” he said.
In the US, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said regulating cryptocurrency exchanges is perhaps the easiest way for the government to get a quick handle on digital token trading, but he is also concerned about new ways people are getting into cryptocurrency, such as peer-to-peer lending on decentralized finance platforms.
A crackdown in China, on exchanges, miners and traders, left some players shifting into lesser-known tokens and decentralized storage technologies.
Nakajima, a career bureaucrat and engineering major from the University of Tokyo, said unlike stocks, cryptocurrency does not have underlying assets and is therefore subject to big price swings. That is one of the reasons the Japanese regulator does not allow cryptocurrency investment trusts, which are considered an easy way for the public to gain exposure to the asset class.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS