DMM Bitcoin, Japan’s New Crypto Exchange, Coming in January

DMM.com is to launch its own cryptocurrency exchange, DMM Bitcoin, according to a report in Bitcoin.com.

The company said in a statement: “DMM Bitcoin will launch a new service site for virtual currency trading on January 10, 2018, and we plan to start accepting account opening applications on January 11.”

Announcing details of the exchange, the Japanese internet service provider said that there will be seven cryptocurrencies supported – Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, and Nem. Leverage will be 4x. The platform will run on your standard home operating systems, and deposits/withdrawals will be made in yen, Bitcoin and Ether.

DMM.com is an internet services company, founded in 1999 and based in Tokyo. Online shopping and rental services are its core business, but it offers products ranging from solar panels to charity auctions. It even has a foreign exchange arm, DMM FX, which is among the largest in the world by trading volume.

We reported on DMM in September when it established a virtual currency division and mining farm with the stated ambition of it becoming one of the ten largest in the world.

This month, 16 exchanges applied to the Japanese Financial Services Agency for a licence under the new ‘Virtual Currency Act’. This law was passed in April 2017 and gave Bitcoin and Ethereum legal status as a means of payment. All but four of the requests were denied, but the market got a boost from the new law nonetheless because Japan is an influential economy, especially when it comes to electronic trading. For example, in October, roughly 42% of the world’s Bitcoin transactions were conducted in Japanese yen, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.

GMO Click, a domestic competitor of DMM, announced its own cryptocurrency mining business a day before DMM did, and recently announced plans to begin paying its employees in Bitcoin.