Japan Proposes New Crypto Asset Regulations to Enhance User Protection

Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) has submitted a bill to the extraordinary Diet session to transfer crypto assets from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. According to BlockBeats, this move aims to strengthen user protection through several key measures. These include differentiating between issuers based on information disclosure, establishing a new category for crypto asset trading businesses, increasing penalties for unlicensed operators, and introducing regulations on insider trading and a levy system. Additionally, the FSA is conducting three ongoing pilot projects under the 'Payment Innovation Project' (PIP) launched in November last year. The first project involves the joint issuance of a yen stablecoin by major banks to verify the efficiency of cross-border settlements for large trading companies. The second project focuses on on-chain securities settlement, using blockchain to record the transfer of rights for government bonds and stocks, aiming for 24/7 continuous trading settlement through stablecoin payments. The third project explores the interbank transfer of tokenized deposits, linking with the Bank of Japan's 'Central Bank Current Account Tokenization Sandbox Project.'