CRYPTO CRIME | Japan’s Financial Regulator Asks Crypto Exchanges to Delay Withdrawals to Combat Scams

Japan’s financial regulator has called on cryptocurrency exchanges to introduce withdrawal delays and additional safeguards as authorities move to curb increasingly sophisticated scams involving digital assets.

The Financial Services Agency (FSA) said that it had jointly requested the measures with the National Police Agency citing growing losses among crypto exchange users and cases in which funds obtained through fraudulent schemes are being transferred to exchange accounts.

Under the request, exchanges should restrict cryptocurrency withdrawals for a specified period after customers deposit fiat currency or purchase digital assets. Platforms have also been asked to require customers to register withdrawal addresses in advance and introduce a waiting period before newly registered addresses can be used.

The request was submitted to the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association, the country’s self-regulatory organization for cryptocurrency exchanges.

The FSA and police also proposed

• customer-specific withdrawal limits,
• stronger monitoring of transactions and account access environments,
• phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, and
• checks to confirm that the name of a bank remitter matches the holder of the corresponding crypto account.