- The Financial Services Agency of Japan asked that FTX Japan to halt business before the US bankruptcy filing.
- In December, the FTX branch filed to be allowed to resume withdrawals.
- Customers have been asked to verify their account balances before resuming withdrawals.
The Japanese branch of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX is apparently considering resuming withdrawals before the end of February. On February 17, Bloomberg reported that the exchange had sent out messages asking affected customers to verify their account balances before withdrawals could resume.
According to the exchange’s COO, Seth Melamed, customers can move their crypto assets to the FTX-owned Liquid Global platform and withdrawals could start “very soon.”
FTX japan and FTX Global
In November FTX together with its affiliated firms filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. But even before FTX could file for bankruptcy in the US, the Financial Services Agency of Japan (FSA) had already asked FTX Japan to halt business operations.
In December 2022, FTX Japan filed for a strategy to resume user withdrawals. The strategy attempted to distinguish the firm’s money from the clients’ money. The firm argued that customers’ funds should be excluded from the exchange’s bankruptcy proceedings in Japan.
Mid-January 2023, FTX obtained approval from a US court allowing it to sell some of its entities including FTX Japan.
At the time of closing business in November 2022, FTX Japan reportedly had about 19.6 billion yen in cash.
The recent developments with FTX Japan come as the former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried got served with Deposition Subpoena by creditors. Representatives for Voyager Digital’s unsecured creditors request that Sam Bankman-Fried and several top-level executives from FTX and Alameda Research should provide documents and appear in court remotely next week for a deposition.
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On July 28th, FTX Japan announced that they are currently prepping to resume customer withdrawals by the end of this month. The company first released its Japanese domain on May 18th and suspended customer withdrawals soon after on May 27th, due to its initial anti-money laundering (AML) and customer identification process taking longer than expected.
It has now become the first licensed digital asset exchange in Japan. After a period of prolonged customer identification process, where FTX Japan required users to submit documentation such as residence certification and government IDs, the company is finally going to resume withdrawals.
This is significant news for Japanese investors as they will now be able to start using the service and participating in the digital asset space. This move comes just as Bitcoin is booming in the market, with it recently breaching the $9,000 price mark. Additionally, FTX Japan also offers other popular digital assets such as Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Litecoin.
FTX Japan has also declared that it will be introducing trading services soon, allowing customers to engage in spot trading services across BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, LINK and more.
The company has also stated that its comprehensive system will ensure customer safety and security. All customer accounts have been already verified, therefore all customers have already undergone the necessary KYC/AML procedures and have passed the necessary identity checks and verification frameworks set forth by the FSA.
In a statement, FTX Japan expressed its excitement towards finally being able to provide its services to its customers. The company opened registration for trading immediately after its announcement.
It is certainly an exciting time in the Japanese crypto space, as cryptocurrency continues to gain momentum in Japan and FTX Japan is all set to show the world the way forward.
