Japan Is Getting A New Cryptocurrency Exchange Called TaoTao

Japan is getting a new cryptocurrency exchange called Taotao. The space will launch in May, and is currently in an onboarding and pre-launch process, reports financemagnates.com.

Slow But Sure Growth

To start, the cryptocurrency exchanges will support trading for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). Also, it will offer margin positions for Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Litecoin (LTC).

The platform will start accepting clients as of today and will be done by April 17th. To help entice partners, Taotao will give JPY 1,000 to the first 500 clients that trade more than JPY 250,000 worth of currencies.

Taotao is funded by Yahoo Japan, with 40 percent of shares being owned by subsidiary YJFX. This project was once BitARG but then Yahoo Japan bought it in March. Of course, this caused enthusiasts and industry experts to predict Yahoo’s involvement in crypto. The amount was never publicly announced, but reports lead us to believe it was around JPY 2 billion.

This news comes shortly after Japan has been enforcing harsher rulings for cryptocurrency margin trading, reports The Next Web. Of course, this ruling is to increase the safety of investors participating in the trading process. However, these changes won’t come into effect until April 2020, meaning users will still have to be wary until then.

Re-registration Is Necessary

That said, platforms choosing to provide margin trading within Japan will need to re-register with the government within 18 months of these regulations going live. Taotao will be one of these.

Put simply, these regulations would put cryptocurrency exchanges on the same level as securities traders. There would be two different types, those that have margin trading, and those more traditional ones that give out tokens and support ICOs.

Before this law, Japanese cryptocurrencies needed to obtain a license thanks to the payment services law that came to in April 2017. Also, Taotao is one of the only platforms to obtain this license, issued by the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA).