Man, this is not a good move for crypto in Japan. Really a roadblock for both bitcoin and alts and hard to see the long-term affects of this.
For example, what does Zaif have to do to become complaint just to operate as an exchange?
It would be nice if anyone from the NEM team could chime in on how this may affect NEM's operations in Japan.
I don't think people understand the gravity of this decision. Bit License applies to everything, not just exchanges. Someone like Takao Asyama could be on the hook for paying $500,000 for BitGirls, $500,000 for Mijin and $500,000 for Zaif and then another $4,000,000+ for compliance. Though I'm thinking creative accounting can be done, by putting everything under Tech Bureau, to reduce it down to $500,000 but still.
Question is can Japan's Blockchain Consortium (BCCC) even put together $500,000 to get a license too? Who will be donating that money to keep it going? Usually those kind of organizations crumble like an old cookiee when freeloader syndrome kicks in. A bit more extreme but remember when R3 started holding their hand out for money and then people just starting leaving in droves.
I think Japan has to be careful.
But basically with the price that high, perhaps they are hoping to shut down all cryptocurrencies?
Will wait and see.
Would be a very hard thing to try and enforce, it will just make its use go underground.
Who even paid the $500,000 for butcoin to be "licensed"?
The Japanese lawyers and accountants know these things better than we foreigners ever could. Maybe there's a loophole for people to get around the $500,000, especially if they are a non-profit or non-revenue entity.
I think the bigger concern is there's no information about who is on the official list and there will probably be some arbitrary decision making based on whale volume and not actual usage within Japan. In terms of usage, XEM exceeds Ethereum and Litecoin in Japan and half the traffic to NEM.io is from Japan but the exchange volume doesn't really indicate that to whatever bureaucratic officer or committee makes up the list.
Not that they would ask for my input but:
1. I can agree with tokens and IOUs being banned. Almost all are vaporware scams or used as toys by whales.
2. Clones shouldn't be permitted. Litecoin, Doge and Ethereum classic are just redirecting volume from better projects and they're actually holding crypto from moving ahead.
3. Darknet coins shouldn't be permitted due to criminality usage (and Monero falls under #2 due to being a copy of Bytecoin).
4. Keep Ethereum off the list. Probably will never happen, because they've had a few people networking with officials for awhile, but the Ethereum platform has been host to many tokens and IOUs (see #1), the DAO hack and other fraudulent schemes. I don't think anyone actually uses Ethereum in a non-speculative fashion in Japan.
Not that they would ever make Bitcoin illegal but at some point they should consider charging a
carbon tax on Bitcoin or the volume of Bitcoin, because Bitcoin network already uses more electricity than entire countries. There's no rationale behind Bitcoin adoption when newer technology like XEM is very energy efficient, the most secure (see China CERT report), faster TPS and XEM should be promoted as much as possible.