The Japan Financial Services Agency announced that it is inspecting all 32 cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan. This includes 16 scholarships that have not been licensed but are currently under review by the agency and those that are already fully licensed.

Read also : Japan’s DMM Bitcoin Exchange opens with 7 cryptocurrencies

16 fully licensed exchanges

The Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA) on Friday released a list of 32 cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan. This includes 16 scholarships that are already licensed and another 16 scholarships that have applied for a license and are currently under review.

The FSA first approved 11 exchanges in September last year: Money Partners, Quoine, Bitflyer, Bit Bank, SBI Virtual Currencies, GMO Coin, Bittrade, Btcbox, Bitpoint, Fisco Virtual Currency and Zaif.

Then, in early December, 4 companies were also authorized to operate cryptocurrency exchanges: Tokyo Bitcoin Exchange, Bit Arg Exchange Tokyo, FTT Corporation and Xtheta Corporation. At the end of December, another exchange, Bitocean, was approved. A total of 16 companies are licensed to operate cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan.

16 other exchanges under review

Until Friday, the FSA never disclosed the names of the companies that applied for a license and were under review. In addition to the aforementioned 16 exchanges, another 16 are currently not licensed but are classified as “virtual currency exchange traders” during their review, the agency said. Among them is Coincheck, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the country.

The other 15 are Minnano Bitcoin, Payward Japan, Lemuria Bitcoin Exchange (Bitcrements), Campfire Corporation, Tokyo Gateway, Lastroots Corporation, Debit, Eternal Link, FSHO Corporation, Raimu, Bit Station, Blue Dream Japan, Mr. Exchange, Bmex Corporation, and Bitexpress Corporation.

Inspections of all exchanges

The agency released this list of all exchanges in response to the Coincheck hack, where 58 billion yen (~ $ 530 million) from NEM was stolen last week. While the stock market has promised to reimburse its 260,000 customers concerned on its own capital, no deadline has been set.

Following the hack, the FSA issued a Business Improvement Order to Coincheck and ordered it to submit a report by February 13 on the hack along with action to prevent a repeat. The agency also carried out an on-site inspection of the stock exchange on Friday to “ensure the protection of users,” Finance Minister Taro Aso said, quoted by the Japan Times. The agency is also planning to find out whether Coincheck has the financial resources to reimburse its customers.

Additionally, the FSA ordered internal inspections of all other cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan based on a checklist of 43 items, according to Jiji Press. They must submit reports on their risk management systems, such as details of their systems for managing customer assets and countermeasures against cyber attacks.

Do you think Japan will have too many crypto exchanges? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Nikkei.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check out our tools section.