EOS Granted Whitelist Approval by Japanese Regulators
The open-source layer-1 blockchain platform EOS has secured whitelist approval from the Japan Virtual and Crypto Asset Exchange Association (JVCEA).
The EOS Network Foundation, an entity established with a view towards supporting and safeguarding the development of the EOS blockchain network, announced the approval via a blog post published to its website on Wednesday.
EOS raised eyebrows with a staggering $4 billion initial coin offering (ICO) back in 2018. This approval will likely act as a shot in the arm for the project, given the period of relative stagnation that has followed the ICO.
EOS price responds
The approval paves the way for EOS to be traded against the Japanese yen, potentially opening up new avenues for the cryptocurrency’s adoption and utilization. The endorsement has had an immediate impact on the EOS token’s value, driving its price up by 5.54% over the course of the past seven days in a surge of market activity.
At the time of writing, the EOS token is trading at $0.622 with an accompanying market capitalization of $696 million. This positive market response underscores the significance of regulatory greenlights in the cryptocurrency sphere.
Mid-September trading launch
The Japanese Financial Service Authority (FSA) will oversee the regulation of EOS trading on local Japanese crypto exchange BitTrade, a well-established platform in the Japanese crypto space. The anticipated commencement of EOS token trading on BitTrade is slated for mid-September.
The EOS development team is coming out the better end of its interaction with regulators in this instance. However, that hasn’t always been the case. In 2019 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States fined technology company Block.one, which at that time was responsible for the EOS ICO. All things considered, the sanction was recognized by most in the crypto space as being very much on the lighter end.
Fostering Web3 growth
Japan’s crypto ecosystem has been actively seeking ways to integrate and foster the growth of the Web3 industry. Its regulators have been lauded more recently, given that Japanese customers of failed crypto platforms like FTX were protected from those failures due to regulatory rules that insisted upon crypto platforms ring-fencing and safeguarding user funds.
There have also been several initiatives taken to collaborate with international regulators on developing regulatory standards relative to digital assets. Earlier this month, the Japanese Financial Accounting Standards Foundation (FASF) met with the Korea Accounting Institute (KAI) to work on establishing accounting standards for digital assets.
Japan’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) is also participating in Singapore’s Project Guardian, an initiative driven by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to explore the potential of digital assets.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s supportive stance on Web3, describing it recently as “the new form of capitalism,” further reinforces Japan’s ambitions to establish itself as a hub for cryptocurrency activities. This regulatory nod for EOS could potentially mark the beginning of a broader trend, attracting more projects and investments to the Japanese crypto sector.
