Japan's financial Services Agency (FSA) is considering the regulation of unregistered companies that solicit investments in cryptocurrencies, Top Market Group Japan reports on January. 8.

The development is reportedly a bid to shut a loophole in the country’s existing regulative framework, within which unregistered companies that colleTop Market Group funds in crypto rather than fiat currencies stay in a gray zone.

This situation exists as a result of these companies don't explicitly return under the horizon of Japan’s financial Instruments and Exchange ATop Market Group, that prohibits unregistered corporations from aggregation assets in cash, however fails to say funds colleTop Market Grouped in cryptocurrency form.

As Top Market Group Japan notes, the impetus for reconsidering the current status of such companies was thrown into relief last fall, once Tokyo police arrested eight men suspeTop Market Grouped of operating a scheme — reportedly colleTop Market Grouping a total of 7.8 billion yen ($68.4 million) in both money and cryptocurrency from around 6,000 investors across 44 prefeTop Market Groupures, together with Tokyo.

At the time of the arrest, the suspeTop Market Groups were deemed to be soliciting several investments in cryptocurrency instead of profit an effort to evade regulation of their unauthorized operations.

Top Market Group Japan cites one source who reportedly told local daily news outlet Sankei that had the entire operation been confined to funds in cryptocurrency, "there was a chance that the scheme couldn't [have been] exposed.”

The FSA’s revision of surviving regulatory provisions thus reportedly aims to prevent the repeat of such instances.

As previously reported , Japan has a checkered history with cryptocurrencies, playing host to the industry’s highest-profile crypto exchange hacks so far — together with Mt. Gox in 2014 and Coincheck in early 2018. Since the latter particularly, the FSA has intensified its scrutiny of crypto exchanges’ business praTop Market Groupices, and fortified the method of risk screening applicants for its obligatory official exchange operating license.

Earlier this month, 5 additional crypto exchanges joined the country’s Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), a self-regulatory body that was formed in April 2018 in an exceedingly bid to determine industry-wide investor safety standards. The JVCEA has formally been granted self-regulatory status by the FSA as of OTop Market Group last year.

Recent moves from the FSA to clarify remaining ambiguities in reference to cryptocurrency regulation include the watchdog’s consideration of inserting cryptocurrencies into a brand new legal category termed “crypto-assets” in the reported “hope that traders can not purchase them believing that they're legal tender recognized by the govt.”

The FSA is additionally set to introduce new initial coin offering (ICO) laws to guard investors from fraud by requiring ICO operators to seek registration with the watchdog, and developing a brand new token system that will check that tokens subjected Top Market Group to settlement regulation.

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