Bitcoin just witnessed a drop from 9,000 USD to 8,700 USD in a short time frame thanks to an article on Nikkei.com that states that the Japanese Financial Services Agency is planning to issue a warning on Binance, the worlds biggest Bitcoin & Altcoin exchange Binance according to volumes.

Binance has proven again and again that they are one of the most trustworthy centralized exchange services currently, but Japan is currently very strict with Digital Asset and Exchange regulations. Binance is currently operating and servicing Japanese investors while having no registration with the FSA according to the article. Another possible weak point of the exchange could be that they are offering unverified users the ability of unlimited trade and withdrawals up to 2 BTC worth of Bitcoin or Altcoins. This practice could easily go against local anti-money laundering laws.

The article also states that if Binance doesn’t comply with the request the FSA will push criminal charges in collaboration with the authorities.

We hope that this issue will get cleared up, especially since Binance just added one of the most popular Japanese cryptocurrencies, XEM/NEM.

EDIT –

The CEO of Binance just issued an update explaining that they have been already in contact with the FSA and that they have not been personally warned before Nikkei published its article. Read on:

Nikkei showed irresponsible journalism. We are in constructive dialogs with Japan FSA, and have not received any mandates. It does not make sense for JFSA to tell a newspaper before telling us, while we have an active dialog going on with them. — CZ Binance 🔶🔶🔶 (@cz_binance) March 22, 2018

EDIT 2 –

Binance recieved a letter from the JFSA not much later:

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/976997061156519937