Binance Faces Potential Criminal Investigation in Japan for Operating Without a License

The Binance trading platform has gotten a lot of attention over the past few months. Considering that it is one of the world’s biggest trading platforms for cryptocurrencies, it is only normal that people will take a closer look at how this company operates right now. It seems the company is still operating without a license in Japan, which could quickly become a problem.

Binance Faces Issues in Japan

While no one will deny that the Binance exchange has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few months, there are still some legal questions waiting to be answered. Especially in Japan, the company is still facing a lot of scrutiny as of right now, although it remains to be seen if this will lead to any major repercussions.

To put this into perspective, Binance is an active exchange in Japan. While that in itself is not much of a problem, the company is operating without an official license. Considering that the Japanese Financial Services Agency made it clear that all companies must register and apply for licenses several months ago, this is rather strange.

Considering that this requirement has been in place for several months now, it seems strange that Binance isn’t even trying to apply for a license. As such, the Japanese financial watchdog has deemed any investor using Binance’s services to be in danger of losing their money due to theft, fraud, and so forth. It is not a scenario any cryptocurrency exchange wants to deal with right now, especially given the string of hacks and thefts affecting multiple platforms over the years.

Assuming Binance continues to operate without a license, it will become subject to an official criminal investigation. As of right now, Japan’s FSA has made it clear that it will file such charges against any cryptocurrency exchange which continues to operate without a license or any intent of obtaining one. That would certainly shake things up for Binance as a whole, although things may never get that far.

It is evident that even the largest altcoin exchange in the world can face regulatory pushback in any country. With so many regulators focusing their attention on the cryptocurrency industry as of right now, no one will be surprised to learn every small misstep is subject to a lot of speculation. In the case of Binance, its failure to verify the identities of Japanese investors has been a thorn in the side of the FSA for some time now.

For the time being, we’ll have to wait and see how Binance plans to deal with this threat. If law enforcement officials were to get involved in the investigation, things may not end well for the company and the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. At the same time, with the launch of decentralized trading solutions, the need for centralized exchanges is slowly dwindling, which is a good thing.