According to Nikkei Asian Review, Yahoo will buy a 40% share of the Tokyo based crypto-asset exchange – BitARG. Yahoo Japan is aiming to fully launch the exchange by April 2019, after a year of development.

Yahoo Japan will purchase its stake in BitARG via its subsidiary company – YJFX – which is a forex transaction platform. The shares will cost Yahoo Japan $19 million (2 billion Yen). Yahoo’s exchange will use BitARG’s system but the exchange itself will be custom built according to Nikkei Asian Review.

Work on developing the new exchange begins next month and Yahoo Japan will hire engineers and executives with the aim of deploying the exchange in under 1 year. According to Nikkei they will also create new corporate governance structures, a sophisticated customer management system and improved internal security controls.

BitARG is registered with Japans FSA (Financial Services Agency), something that Binance exchange has been struggling to do. The FSA are preparing to warn Binance that their operations in Japan must be closed if they do not secure a regeristration with the FSA. According to the FSA they will have to cease operations under the ‘Payment Services Act’.

Crypto Exchange Consolidation

Recently, payments company Circle bought Poloniex exchange and Yahoo’s purchase appears to be continuing the trend of exchange consolidation. Experts in the industry expect the number of exchanges to reduce but trading volumes on the winning exchanges to increase in the coming years.

Binance, Coinbase and Poloniex are likely to be among this list, with Binance looking to open a second exchange in Malta that accepts fiat payments.