At 11:30 am on August 4th, Klaytn made its first debut on a Japanese exchange, BITPoint licensed by the Financial Services Agency of Japan. The listing on the Japanese exchange means more than a mere listing on an exchange, as a cryptocurrency is listed in Japan not until the Financial Services Agency of Japan, equivalent to the Financial Services Commission of Korea, approves it after going through a review process. Likewise, entering the Japanese crypto market itself is not easy at all. Through this article, we would like to look into the meaning of Klaytn’s listing on the Japanese exchange.
The meaning of listing on a Japanese exchange
1. Crypto listing process in Japan
The process of listing a cryptocurrency on a Japanese exchange is different from that in other countries in general. While in other countries, a listing team of an exchange plays a leading role in evaluating, screening and listing projects, exchanges in Japan cannot make a listing decision. In Japan, the JVCEA (Japan Crypto Asset Exchange Association) and FSA (Financial Supervisory Agency) evaluate and approve the listings, and Japanese exchanges can apply for listings within a predefined quota.
For listing application, various documents requested by the JVCEA such as overview document, report for evaluation and evaluation sheet should be thoroughly prepared, and the JVCEA, for its part, determines whether a cryptocurrency is sellable to the general public based on the submitted documents and strict criteria. And even after passing JVCEA’s screening process, the final approval by the FSA is required. As such, a diverse and complicated process is required to list a cryptocurrency, which is known to take at least 6 months or up to 2 years.
*FSA (Financial Supervisory Agency): The chief regulator of Japan’s financial services industry
*JVCEA (Japan Crypto Asset Exchange Association):
A self-regulatory organization licensed by the FSA in 2018 pursuant to Japan’s Payment Services Act (PSA)
2. Meaning of being whitelisted in Japan
Whitelist refers to a list of cryptocurrencies listed on the exchanges registered at the FSA.
In April 2017, the whitelist was created as the FSA’s crypto exchange registration system took effect with the amendment to the Payment Services Act (PSA) of Japan. As a result, exchanges which are not directly screened by the FSA are banned from trading cryptocurrencies for the sake of anti-money laundering and consumer protection. And as listing a cryptocurrency also involves a series of complex screening processes, a project in question is deemed to be stable and reliable in comparison to other cryptocurrencies hence is dubbed as the “Whitelist” by the Japanese blockchain industry. In other words, a whitelisted cryptocurrency project is indirectly guaranteed to be stable and reliable in contrast to those not in the list.
It is said that KLAY has also gone through the FSA’s exhaustive screening process before its inclusion to the whitelist. So, the Klaytn project can be considered to have its stability and credibility recognized by the Japanese market :D.
Announcement by the JVCEA on KLAY’s addition to the whitelist
3. Whitelisting project (As of Aug 30th 2022)
Since the JVCEA was granted as a self-regulatory body by the FSA in 2018, a total of 33 projects have been whitelisted, out of which 16 projects were added to the list this year. The cryptocurrencies eventually listed on a Japanese exchange after being whitelisted are top cryptocurrencies by CoinMarketCap’s market cap, cryptocurrencies originating from an exchange or projects developed in Japan. KLAY’s listing on the whitelist follows that of Solana in February and Polygon in June, which implies that Klaytn is on par with the industry’s renowned global projects and well recognized for its stability and reliability.
The Klaytn project continues to drive its global expansion along with the efforts of diverse builders and holders. Japan is one of such examples. A strategic partnership was signed early this year with a Japanese tech giant, GMO Internet Group to explore Klaytn use cases including a JPY/stable coin pair for the Klaytn project’s foray into Japan.
Also, Klaytn GC members such as Gumi and Cocone that are running a main business in Japan are working in numerous ways to expand the Klaytn project in Japan. Furthermore, Japan’s first open source DEX implementation project by a Japanese top-notch developer, Soramitsu is expected to have a huge impact on the expansion of the Klaytn project as well.
With the latest addition to the list, Klaytn has become established as one of a very few Asian projects whitelisted in Japan, and listing on the Japanese market of game and creative IPs gives an opportunity for Klaytn on the path toward an optimized blockchain for gaming and metaverse to create a variety of synergies with Japanese partners.
As for Japanese IPs in particular, the Klaytn project’s blockchain technology is expected to be a medium for reaching out to global users as well as local users. Also, it looks forward to providing diverse values to Japanese retail and offline services attempting to change with NFT projects and web 3.0 other than gaming and animation.
Klaytn is seeking to provide a wide array of support in the Japanese market with potential, starting from blockchain developers to the general public to become a “Blolckchain Metaverse for All”. So stay tuned for more updates on Klaytn expansion in Japan.
1) Application for listing on the first, second and third exchange in Japan should be submitted to the JVCEA by default.
2) Cryptocurrency listed on three exchanges shall be on the “Greenlist”, which ensures much easier subsequent listing on other exchanges.
