Main Japanese social messaging app LINE has declared on Jan. 31, that it is going to launch its own crypto exchange and in-app trading space for its 200 million active users per month.
In accordance with LINE’s official announcement today, their application to operate a new cryptocurrency exchange is now sitting before Japanese regulators.
Japan started realizing a licensing scheme for cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017. The government allowed over 20 exchanges joining what become a popular industry, involving several large corporations.
In its official declaration LINE said it was founding a new company, LINE Financial Corporation, to serve as a base to “supply a number of financial services, including a place to exchange and transact virtual currencies, loans, and insurance.”
The in-app cryptocurrency exchange will supplement LINE’s existing in-app mobile payment service, LINE Pay, which has about 40 million registered users for today.
Apart from this, the platform’s goal is to “promote research and development of technologies such as blockchain,” but did not particularly mention what shape would it take.
After Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck’s $530 mln heist last week, experts had warned that the image of cryptocurrency may be dented in the public eye for the medium term, something which fresh involvement of famous brands like LINE could help facilitate.
Japan wanted to move away from the more restraining positions on cryptocurrency usage taken by neighboring China and S. Korea this year and last.
