Yahoo Finance Crypto Prices Slump After Japan's Regulator Issues Warnings To Binance
Investing.com – Cryptocurrenies traded lower on Friday after Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) said in a statement that it issued warnings to Binance, one of the biggest digital coins exchange.
Bitcoin was trading at $8,411.4 by 12:20AM ET (04:20 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 7.3% over the previous 24 hours.
Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, dived 10.6% to trade at $514.82 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Ripple’s XRP token plunged 9.5% to $0.62610 on the Poloniex exchange.
Meanwhile, Litecoin was trading 6.2% lower at $159.75.
The Japanese regulator issued a warning on Friday to the Hong Kong-based Binance for conducting business with Japanese residents on the internet without a license. Binance also allegedly allowed Japanese residents to open accounts on the internet without properly confirming their identities.
"Our lawyers called JFSA immediately, and will find a solution," Binance CEO Zhao Changpeng said on Twitter.
The incident was first reported by Japanese media outlet Nikkei. Bloomberg then disseminated the reports, and has received a lot of focus on social media.
Binance's CEO Zhao Changpeng said such reports were “irresponsibile journalism.”
“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,” Said Zhao.
Binance co-founder He Yi also reportedly dismissed the alleged problem. “We are not in Japan. Also, the list has existed for months, and it is just a plan at this stage, nothing has happened, don’t worry.” Yi said.
The FSA’s announcement came after the Japan-based Coincheck reported a $530 million cryptocurrency hack in January.
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