Binance Will Restrict Access To Japan Residents

A new January 15 announcement is in the focus of the latest Binance news, showing that Binance will restrict access to all residents of Japan at an unspecified later date. The restriction will apparently be implemented gradually and the details are expected to be revealed later, as the announcement read.

Right now, there are no restrictions in place and the Japanese users are able to operate the exchange normally. Previously, the Binance exchange was headquartered in Japan after existing China. As we reported in March 2018, the exchange moved the operations to Malta after an official warning by the Japanese regulators because of the lack of a national exchange license.

Since then, several exchanges registered with the regulator. The rival Huobi had obtained the license in January 2019, while the Japanese corporation LINE and its BitBox exchange secured it in September.

It is now very possible that as Binance will restrict access to the Japanese residents, it encountered similar regulatory difficulties despite not legally resident in the country. As the crypto exchange Kraken ceased to provide services to Japanese residents in April 2018, citing the rising costs of doing business mainly due to the licensing requirements.

However, there are not many new updates in this case in the latest cryptonews. What is also worth mentioning is that on January 9th, the digital asset marketplace Binance.US unveiled its mobile app for iOS and Android users after successful beta testing. With it, users can now trade over 25 digital currencies in real-time and track and analyze all the market movements while trading within ACH limits up to $30k, making wire transfers and making debit card payments.

While reports show that Binance will restrict access to Japanese users, the app rolled out in the United States has shown big success and impressed the early users. The 4.4 star rating on Google Play and 4.9 star rating on the App Store are a solid proof for that. What’s even more interesting is that the exchange said that this new app is just the start for its relatively young US arm. The CEO of BinanceUS Catherine Coley recently spoke about that, and said that “the app launch makes strides towards achieving one of our goals for 2020: to build an everyday product that’s a part of people’s everyday lives.”