Obaino Joshua

COINBASE OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES IN JAPAN Japan is arguably the world’s biggest crypto-currency market and the announcement of the US crypto-currency exchange mogul- Coinbase (currently resident in 32 other countries) to officially launch it’s operation in the country will imply that the market can only get larger and bigger. Coinbase in an earlier report this week asserts to the commencement of its operation in Japan with the intention of working in close association with the country’s financial regulator (FSA- Financial Service agency). Coinbase states in its announcement; “As in other markets we plan to take a deliberate approach to our rollout in Japan which means working hand-in-hand with the Japanese FSA to ensure compliance with the local laws at every stage.” COINBASE CEO IN JAPAN UNVEILED Nao Kitazawa who was formerly an investment banker at Morgan Stanley has been announced by the San Francisco-based crypto exchange giant as the CEO of Coinbase in Japan. Nao has spent several years litigating cases related to finance and real estate in Japan. He was also a member of an international law firm. His experience and expertise makes him a perfect choice by Coinbase. THE ANNOUNCEMENT IS LONG AWAITED Although the resolutions to acknowledge and recognize the use of crypto-currencies like bitcoin as payment method in Japan was reached in April 2017, Coinbase has been eying the market prior to that period. The launch is long overdue following an earlier aspiration of Coinbase in July 2016 to break into the market when it generated revenue of $10.5 million dollar from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (BTM) whom are both Japan’s largest financial services group and bank in that order. Coinbase has been eying the Japanese market for close to two years and now that the market has been secured, we can only expect acceleration in the adoption of the crypto-currency. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF COINBASE LAUNCH IN JAPAN? Japan is the second country in Asia Coinbase is present in, the first being Singapore. Japan being one of the largest crypto markets in the world implies that Coinbase will face stiff competition with crypto-currencies that are already in operation in the country. There are currently more than 16 fully licensed crypto exchanges with Bitflyer being the country’s largest crypto exchange by volume. It has also been revealed by FSA that more crypto companies are seeking to enter the space including Yahoo! Japan, Line Corp and also one of the largest financial services companies, SBI group, that has recently launched it's operations. Coinbase will have to expand faster to beat the competition already in place and to do it will have to add more coins to its extremely limited offerings. Taking cognisance of the competition in the market, a report has shown that the firm has recently introduced suite of products for institutions, developed bank-grade custodial services and launched a new asset management division.