Binance Japan to add 13 new tokens, bringing its total to 47 listings

The Japanese arm of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has decided to list 13 new tokens on its platform. This will bring its total to 47, which is claimed by the exchange to be the highest number in the country.

The tokens that will be added are: Hedera Hashgraph ($HBAR), Near Protocol ($NEAR), Optimism ($OP), Immutable X ($IMX), Arbitrum ($ARB), The Graph ($GRT), Render Token ($RNDR), Decentraland ($MANA), EOS ($EOS), GALA ($GALA), ApeCoin ($APE), Klaytn ($KLAY) and Lisk ($LSK).

These listings are scheduled for 27 November, as announced on Wednesday. According to the exchange, all of these tokens have already been listed on other registered exchanges in the country.

They are therefore classified as eligible tokens for a simplified assessment process by the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association, which is the self-regulatory body in Japan.

Talking about the latest development, general manager of Binance Japan, Takeshi Chino, said: “This is another big step towards our ambition to offer 100 tokens in Japan. We will continue striving to enrich our service offerings in Japan by leveraging our global expertise and our leading blockchain ecosystem.”

In August, Binance Japan had revealed its plans to offer at least 100 tokens on its platform in the short term. It was about three times of what it offered back then, when the listing stood at 34 tokens.

This came just a month after the exchange had re-entered Japan after being issued warnings by the country’s regulator in 2021 for operating in the country without a proper registration.

In November 2022, Binance acquired 100% of Sakura Exchange BitCoin, placing it back on track for it to be regulated by the Japan Financial Services Agency. As a part of the process, SEBC changed its business name to Binance Japan Inc. Commenting on Binance’s re-entry into the Japanese markets, founder and chief executive of Binance, Changpeng Zhao said: “It’s fantastic to see Japan being a leader in the Web3 regulatory environment. Japan has very clear regulations from 2017 with crypto exchange regulations, and more recently this year with the opening-up of crypto listing frameworks as well as in June the passing of the stablecoin regulations.”

The exchange also plans to work with other local crypto exchanges in the country to ensure better liquidity in the market, as reported by Japanese crypto media outlet Coinpost. Zhao was noted retweeting this article on X (formerly Twitter), confirming the same.

Other major crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken, exited the Japanese market, citing market conditions. Coinbase paused its business in Japan, advising customers to withdraw their assets from the platform in January this year.

Kraken, on the other hand, ceased its operations in December 2022, after laying off 30% of its workforce a month before. The move was made in the light of sliding crypto volumes where the current market conditions in Japan did not bode well with the weak crypto market globally.

The ongoing market conditions were a struggle for Binance as well, which called Q3 2023 as a “challenging quarter” in its quarterly ‘Market Pulse’ report. During this time, the total market capitalisation for crypto declined by 8.6%.

However, the report also noted that even though the market experienced significant volatility during this period, it was marked by a general recovery following the previous quarter’s downturn.