Although Japan seems to be warming up to cryptocurrency, it can be quite expensive to purchase Bitcoin. Over in China, people are almost getting used to paying a small premium price on top of the market value. But when people in Japan pay a fee of over 7.4% in commission, things look far less appealing all of a sudden.
Buying Bitcoin In Japan is Not Necessarily Cheap
People living in the Eastern part of the globe may have noticed how some things appear to be more expensive to them for some reason. Especially when it comes to buying Bitcoin, things can get quite expensive fast. Although there is nothing wrong with paying a small premium price, anything above 3% raises some questions.
One Reddit user pointed out how his Bitcoin purchase on the bitflyer exchange would be subject to a 7.41% commission fee. It is important to note this would be a purchase made by a non-Japanese resident, making it rather strange as to why they would use bitFlyer in the first place. Then again, these fees are far too high regardless, and it is an issue that needs to be addressed.
There is no particular reason why commissions would be higher based on the user’s location, regardless of which exchange they use. All of these platforms try to reach a very large customer base, but by charging ridiculous fees, reaching that goal will be a lot more difficult. Plus, users pay for the currency conversion – if applicable – already, so there is no need to charge a different fee on top of that.
For the longest time, it appeared as if bitFlyer would not be charging a commission for its users. Moreover, there was no indication they had “location bias” regarding the commission fee. These rates will force users to find other solutions, and with exchange competition heating up in Japan, that will not be a big problem.
Attracting users to buy and sell Bitcoin should be the primary objective for any Bitcoin exchange in the world. That also means ensuring they are not forced to overspend funds at any stage. Perhaps this was just a bug on the bitflyer website, which will be rectified later on. Or that is what we hope, at least.
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