Privacy Coins Under Fire From Japanese Government
By: Ivy Riane
Tags: Monero, Investing, Cryptocurrency, Finance, Sentiment

Photo Courtesy of Monero.org

Many crypto investors have some stake in privacy coins, or at least find them appealing, because of the appeal to keep transactions anonymous in an age of technology when your personal information is out in the open everywhere online no matter how much you try to protect your data.

I can definitely see the appeal for privacy coins for individuals and have been known to hold some myself because I like the premise behind many of the projects in this space.

Japan’s Stance on Privacy Coins

Japan’s Financial Services Agency is putting heavy pressure on their local crypto coin exchanges to de-list privacy coins like Monero, Dash, and Zcash.

Sources close to the FSA regulatory agency say that this agency is pulling out all the stops with this endeavor. They are serious in crushing those that tout having the ability to make all transactions anonymous.

The claim is that these particular cryptos are difficult for governments to track, much more so than Bitcoin, and this allows criminals to use them to handle their financial affairs with no fear of reprisal from governments.

Monero has been associated with many cryptojacking attempts lately that have made news headlines and drawn negative attention to this crypto in particular. Cryptojacking is when hackers infect personal computers with malware that hijacks the CPU and uses it to mine crypto for the hackers.

“It should be seriously discussed as to whether any registered cryptocurrency exchange should be allowed to use such currencies,” a member of a Financial Services Agency (FSA) sponsored cryptocurrency working group reportedly said in a meeting on April 10.

Already Seeing Some Resistance to Privacy Coins

As of right now, investors are still able to trade privacy coins but the FSA has already had some success in trying to get rid of privacy coins.

Coincheck is a Japanese based cryptocurrency exchange that was in the news for a record-breaking hack with huge losses back in January that was acquired by Monex. Under the radar, Coincheck decided to de-list Monero and two other altcoins that are not well known but are privacy coins. Critics of Coincheck think that this move is another calculated move orchestrated to try to convince the FSA that they have made strides to clean up their act after that crazy hack. Read more about the Coincheck hack here.

Photo Courtesy of Coincheck.com

I don’t think Coincheck has been granted a license yet in order to fully legally operate so this could be a way for them to try to prove themselves to the FSA in order to gain their license.

What Happens Next?

Many of the licensed crypto exchanges had recently formed a self-regulating organization to try to handle common problems themselves without necessarily needing help from government regulatory bodies. I wrote a on post on it here.

I would hazard a guess that this self-regulating body will put together a list of acceptable cryptos for the law abiding exchanges to list and propose it to the FSA. If the FSA agrees to the list then they will be tasked with putting pressure on the other exchanges to de-list any altcoins that are not on that list.

This whole thing makes me a little bit nervous because I like privacy coins and the premise behind privacy coins. I can understand where the Japanese government is coming from wanting to prevent criminal activity or the funding of such but I think that if a government is allowed to squash privacy coins then it opens the floodgates to preventing so many other cryptos from seeing the light of day.

I just don’t want to see too much regulation in the crypto space that it bars the little guy investors from gaining entry to the marketplace. I want crypto to be available to anyone that wants to invest in it.

I would love to hear your thoughts on privacy coins and the Japanese government wanting to de-list them and/or on possible regulation coming down the pipe.

Thanks for reading!

Ivy