The State of the Japanese Crypto Market 

Despite its early adoption advantage, Japan’s crypto market faces unique challenges. This report explores regional crypto market trends and examines the historical factors that have influenced the development of Japan’s domestic exchanges and key players over time.

Part 1: Japan’s Tumultuous Crypto Journey

Part 2: JPY’s Role in Crypto

Part 3: Main Players in Japan’s Crypto Market

Pt. 1: Japan’s Tumultuous Crypto Journey

Japan has been home to two of the largest cryptocurrency exchange hacks to date, making its history with crypto rocky, despite its early adoption by retail investors. This situation forced regulators to become involved much earlier than their counterparts in other countries.

→ Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange, was once the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world.

→ Its hack in 2014 resulted in the loss of 7% of the total Bitcoin supply.

Pt. 2: JPY’s Role in Crypto

Japan’s crypto market lags behind other regions, particularly due to exchange listing restrictions and taxes. The trend of JPY-denominated trading volume on exchanges accurately reflects Japan’s relationship with crypto.

→ There was a time when JPY volumes exceeded USD volumes.

Pt. 3: Main Players in Japan’s Crypto Market

Japanese crypto exchanges struggle to compete with their international counterparts in terms of product offerings, leading to lower trading volumes, despite there being 29 registered crypto-asset exchanges.

→ BitFlyer has maintained its dominance in recent years, amongst domestic exchanges.

→ Japan’s domestic exchanges struggle to compete with Binance in terms of trading volume since Covid.