By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 19th, 2024
Bitcoin keeps on boosting and Japan has all chances to overtake China in terms of trading activity.
Bitcoin price has exceeded the $1,500 barrier. Yesterday, the cryptocurrency was traded at $1,484 level while now the price has jumped to $1,507, according to the CoinMarketCap website.
High trading volumes and demand in Japan have been making Bitcoin price creep upward in the previous days. According to statistics, around 50% of daily trading volume comes from Japanese exchanges, arousing speculations that Japan has all chances to overtake China in terms of market share soon. Things are playing out in favor of Japan as China has slowed down trading activity due to the government’s efforts to crack down on cryptocurrency trading.
Although there is an 8% consumption rate tax on purchasing bitcoin at exchanges in Japan, the Yen-Bitcoin trading is booming. At the end of 2016, Japanese officials decided to cancel this tax tariff but the law will be implemented only in July this year.
The decision of the Japanese officials to recognize bitcoin as a legal form of payment shored up the digital currency. Reportedly, 18 companies are planning to get a special license to operate Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan. It is interesting that more than 10 of these 18 companies are new to the bitcoin ecosystem in the country.
Experts mark the decision of the US Securities and Exchange Commission to review the refusal of the Winklevoss ETF as one more factor that has great influence on the Bitcoin boost.
The refusal of the ETF came unexpected last month as 72% of unbiased advisors had believed in the approval. The decision of the SEC clogged more-than-three-year efforts of investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to bring the Bitcoin ETF to market.
“As discussed further below, the Commission is disapproving this proposed rule change because it does not find the proposal to be consistent with Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act, which requires, among other things, that the rules of a national securities exchange be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest,” the SEC said.
“The Commission believes that, in order to meet this standard, an exchange that lists and trades shares of commodity-trust exchange-traded products (“ETPs”) must, in addition to other applicable requirements, satisfy two requirements that are dispositive in this matter. First, the exchange must have surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading the underlying commodity or derivatives on that commodity. And second, those markets must be regulated.”
The SEC stated regulatory uncertainty and the risk of fraud as main reasons for the rejection.