From the launch of new products and services in Japan to facilitating leveraged trading bets, crypto exchanges and some financial firms are rushing to cash in on rising investor enthusiasm for digital assets amid hopes of easing regulations.
The recent surge underscores a higher appetite for riskier investments in Japan as inflation outpaces wage growth and overrides a wariness around crypto investments that followed serious security breaches at exchanges in 2014 and 2018.
Japanese investors’ crypto assets surpassed a record 5 trillion yen (US$33.16 billion) at the end of July, jumping 25 per cent from just a month earlier. The price of bitcoin – the dominant holding – rose only 15 per cent in yen terms over the same period.
Holdings have since dropped marginally to 4.9 trillion yen as of end-September.
Industry players are now positioning for growth to pick up pace. Regulatory changes under discussion could bring in yet more retail investors by potentially cutting tax paid on crypto gains and easing curbs on trading using borrowed money and asset securitisation.
“There are around three times as many people with securities accounts as crypto accounts, so there’s still a considerable opportunity,” said Satoshi Hasuo, representative director and executive officer of exchange Coincheck.
“Next, we have to think about how we’ll win these people over,” Hasuo said.
CJ Fong, Asia Pacific general manager at crypto market maker GSR, said the firm has also been engaged in more talks this year with Japanese exchanges and financial firms, mainly to provide greater liquidity across a spectrum of digital assets.
The burst of activity shows how Japan is re-establishing itself as a major crypto market as industry players capitalise on the boost the industry has had globally under US President Donald Trump.
“The Trump administration has spurred the Japanese government and regulators into adopting a friendlier approach to crypto, so Japan doesn’t fall behind,” said Noriyuki Hirosue, CEO of exchange Bitbank.
According to a report by crypto data platform Chainalysis, Japan ranked 19th out of the top 20 nations in crypto adoption globally this year.
Established exchanges are developing products and services in anticipation of regulatory changes that would tax digital-asset gains like those of securities and allow crypto investment through products such as ETFs and tax-free investment vehicles.
The Japan Financial Services Agency is refining rule changes, which will then be debated by parliament and, if passed, would come into effect in 2026 or 2027.
A similar overhaul of rules around foreign exchange trading in 2012 triggered a boom that saw trading volumes swell about tenfold in the space of 10 years, Bitbank’s Hirosue said.
“I think this could hugely expand the market,” he added.
In August, Coincheck announced a partnership with the crypto assets arm of online marketplace Mercari to offer a wider range of assets to Mercari’s more casual customer base.
Mercari introduced simple crypto trading functions to its marketplace buyers and sellers in March 2023 and grew to 3.4 million crypto accounts by July 2025, making up over a quarter of Japan’s total of 13.2 million accounts.
Its rapid growth has helped introduce crypto trading to a much larger audience, industry players say.
SBI VC Trade is considering “enhancing leveraged trading services” on the prospect of leverage trading ratios being relaxed from the current two times to about 5-10 times, representative director and president Tomohiko Kondo said.
The firm, the crypto trading arm of conglomerate SBI Holdings, also plans to offer lending services in USDC stablecoin and is exploring the launch of crypto ETF products, Kondo said.
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