https://www.ccn.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-binance-facing-regulatory-pressure-in-japan-report/Japans top securities regulator will warn cryptocurrency exchange Binance that it must cease operating in the country without a license or face enforcement action.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, Nikkei reports that Japans Financial Services Agency (FSA) will issue a formal warning to Binance, which has allegedly begun expanding operations into Japan without permission from the regulatory agency.
Headquartered in Hong Kong and bootstrapped through an initial coin offering (ICO) last year, Binance has quickly emerged as one of the worlds most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. At present, Binance ranks as the worlds largest cryptocurrency trading platform, with a 24-hour volume of nearly $1.9 billion.
Binance has its own utility token BNB and the exchange operator has announced that it has begun development on its own public blockchain, which will be used as the foundation for a decentralized exchange (DEX). The BNB price fell by approximately 10 percent from its intraday high following the initial report, although its 24-hour performance is still in positive territory.
Binance has said that intends to apply for an FSA license, but the fact that it expanded its operations into this jurisdiction without regulatory approval could attract more scrutiny to the companys application.
What will probably happen is that Binance will simply move away from the japanese markets instead of applying for a Japanese FSA license. They'll probably just disable their services for Japanese people instead of reforming their entire KYC policy or try to actually become licensed, because they want to continue to attract customers from other countries via their loose verification policies.
The problems were there at the beginning, it was just not noticed until they have gained a sizable volume. And that's the problem with all exchanges - if they operate without issues as a small exchange, they'll still probably get caught up in regulatory issues when they get bigger.
And yes, decentralised exchanges is definitely a need. Nobody trusts centralized exchanges anymore, I'd much rather prefer p2p trading even for altcoins to be honest. At least there won't be anything concerning regulations.