Japan’s Central Bank Considers Launching A Cryptocurrency

Japan’s central bank is among the latest entities that are slowly onboarding the cryptocurrency train and is now considering launching their own cryptocurrency as we are reading today our coming altcoin news.

The nations across the globe are now working on digital currencies and Japan’s central bank is the latest to join them. The Bank Of Japan’s deputy governor already stated that they had no plans to launch a digital currency and the Bank’s institute for financial research on Friday released a new report that explores the legal issues around the issuance of digital currency.

Japan’s Central bank set up the new legal issues study group on Central Bank Digital Currency in November 2018 and according to the report, the central banks’ interest in CBDCs follows the latest changes in the financial sector and the changes in payment services with a decrease in cash usage in some of the countries. The report does not represent the official views of the Bank of Japan and the publication indicates that the Bank is now interested in exploring the legal problems around the central bank digital currencies including whether to issue them or not.

One of the main problems is that under Japanese law, the legal money is limited only to banknotes and cash money. A CBDC would not be issued as a banknote which is why it is required to revise the existing law. The report also noted that the anti-money laundering is a huge deal and that the transaction records have to be created and all of the identities verified. The report advised that the financial institution processing these kinds of transactions will be responsible for verifying identities.

Japan’s increasing interest in a CBDC was spiked because of China’s heavy impact on the blockchains scene which also invested a lot in digital currency. The currency named the Digital Currency Electronic Payment would boost the financial inclusion in the rural areas according to MuChangchun, who is the head of the People’s Bank of China digital currency research institute during a Singapore conference last month.

As previously reported, One of the booming Japanese regions for tourists could soon introduce its own local cryptocurrency. Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) and an Osaka-based railway company are behind the wheel of this new project, potentially allowing tourists in the Ise-Shima (Japan) region to use and pay with local cryptocurrency.