The operator of Line, Japan’s most popular chat app with approximately 200 million users worldwide, has confirmed the upcoming launch of its cryptocurrency exchange called Bitbox. The new platform will list more than 30 of the most popular cryptocurrencies, offering “low trading fees”. Supporting 15 languages, the new exchange will launch globally, except for two countries.
Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space
Line Corp Launching Crypto Exchange Next Month
Line Corp, the operator of Japan’s most popular chat app, announced Thursday at the Line Conference 2018 that “it plans to establish the cryptocurrency exchange Bitbox in July 2018.” According to the company’s official announcement:
Bitbox will offer more than 30 highly demanded cryptocurrencies for global users (except in Japan and the United States), with support in 15 languages.
Line Corp elaborated that the 15 languages include English, Korean, and Chinese. Furthermore, the company emphasized that the new platform will be a “Cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency exchange (no fiat currency trading available).”
According to the company, in the first quarter of this year, its chat app had 165 million monthly active users (MAU) across four key countries: Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia. In Japan, there were 75 million users in that time period, which was 2 million more than the previous quarter. While Line has continually gained more users in Japan, it has lost users in the other three markets combined. Nonetheless, its overall DAU (daily active users) to MAU ratio has been steadily growing.
About Bitbox
The CEO of Line Corp, Idezawa Takeshi, commented that “with Bitbox, Line users will be able to access cryptocurrencies more easily, while also being assured of state-of-art security measures to protect their assets.”
Line Corp explained that the cryptocurrencies to be listed on Bitbox “have gone through an extensive screening process.” They were “selected by an internal committee to offer the most reliable and safest trading for users,” the company noted, adding:
Bitbox will trade highly demanded coins, including bitcoin, ethereum, bitcoin cash, and litecoin, while offering low trading fees of 0.1%.
In January, the company said it had applied for a registration to operate a crypto exchange with the Japanese financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Under the revised fund settlement law, all crypto exchanges in Japan must register with the FSA. However, the process was held up after one of the largest crypto exchanges in the country, Coincheck, was hacked which prompted the FSA to tighten its oversight and registration rules. Recently, the agency issued business improvement orders to six fully-licensed crypto exchanges including the country’s largest, Bitflyer.
What do you think of Line Corp launching a crypto exchange? Do you think millions of the Line Chat app users will be using it? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Line Corp.
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