U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken has decided to shut down its operations in Japan due to the tough market conditions in the country and a weak global crypto market. The company feels that the ongoing challenges do not justify the resources required to grow its business in Japan. Kraken is one of the world’s leading crypto exchanges, processing $434.1 million of trading volumes per day, as per CoinMarketCap data.
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The company will deregister from Japan’s Financial Services Agency on January 31, 2023, and will stop offering services to its clients in Japan through its subsidiary Payward Asia. Kraken will remove the deposit functionality on its platform on January 9, 2023. However, Kraken users in Japan will have time until the end of next month to withdraw their fiat and crypto holdings, with the option of transferring crypto to another wallet or cashing out and wiring Japanese yen to a domestic bank account.
This is the second time that Kraken is quitting the Japanese market. The company had previously exited Japan in 2018, blaming rising costs of doing business in the country. The company relaunched its operations in 2020 after securing regulatory approval.
Kraken recently announced that it intends to lay off 1,100 employees or nearly one-third of its workforce, as the FTX fiasco made the crypto markets weaker. The crypto market has been battered this year as rising interest rates have pushed investors away from risky assets. The FTX bankruptcy and the related scandal have further impacted investor sentiment. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the world’s biggest token, is down over 64% year-to-date.
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