It became known that the Japanese government will introduce rules for crypto transactions aimed at preventing the use of cryptocurrency exchanges by criminals for the purpose of money laundering. The rules will come into force in May 2023. The Law on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds will be revised and will require the provision of information about all customers and transactions between exchange operators. This will prevent illegal activities related to virtual currencies.
The draft amendment will be presented at an extraordinary meeting of the Parliament, which will be held on October 3, 2022. Thus, if it is adopted, then all cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Japan will have to reconsider their current policy.
The services will be required to provide regulators with information about the client, including name and address, when sending virtual assets to other trading platforms. This will make it possible to determine the chain of movements of cryptocurrency funds and their origin in case of fraudulent transactions.
Operators who violate the rules will be subject to administrative instructions, and their owners may be prosecuted. Separately, this Law will affect stablecoins. The distribution of coins linked to the value of fiat currencies will take place through the registration system. The government has planned to introduce a large-scale cryptocurrency monitoring system.
In addition to the Law on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds, the Law on Foreign Currency and Foreign Trade and the Law on Freezing of Assets of International Terrorists will be revised. The proposed amendment to the first of them will add stablecoins to the list of regulated assets, which will prevent their transfer to the parties under the sanctions list.
