Japanese Regulators Deny Having Interest in Bitcoin ETF

By Debarun Gupta

Japan’s Financial regulatory body, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) has denied that it was interested in pursuing the idea of a Bitcoin (BTC) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in the first place, amidst rumours that Japan might be the first country in the world to allow crypto ETF.

2018 was a less-than-ideal year for the cryptocurrency industry, with prices for digital currencies being in freefall throughout the year, with some cryptocurrencies seeing a price drop of more than ninety per cent. However, some progress was made as investors were able to establish a strong desire in pushing for a Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund.

The push was led by co-creators of Facebook’s predecessor – HarvardConnection, the Winklevoss twins and other financial institutions such as New York’s VanEck. The proposal for a regulated BTC ETF was put in front of the United States Securities & Exchange multiple times, failing to gain approval in most cases and being continually delayed in others.

However, the most recent development in this matter has been the rumours regarding the plans moving out of US borders. According to one anonymous source related to Bloomberg, Japan was slated to become the first country in the world to allow the creation of cryptocurrency Exchange-Traded Funds. The anonymous sources said that the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) had gotten rid of the idea of allowing digital currencies to be treated like physically-backed futures and traded inside the country, and was instead looking towards the creation of crypto ETFs as a source of financial innovation.

However, official sources from inside the FSA denied all rumours in brief but diplomatic statement.

“At this moment, we are not exploring an approval of ETFs based on crypto assets.”

The Agency also denied any knowledge of the persons spreading the rumours to Bloomberg in the first place. While the FSA statement technically denies exploring a Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund, it doesn’t go so far as to close the door on the issue altogether. However, it is indeed possible that the institution might just be taking time to evaluate the situation and the rumours could come true in the coming months.

The Winklevoss twins have been very active this week, promoting ETF on social media websites and forums. On Monday, the twins participated in an AMA on Reddit, covering a variety of topics related to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. However, most of the AMA was spent talking about ETF approval and better regulatory measures in general.