BitMEX announced Tuesday on its blog that it will restrict Japanese residents from signing up for the platform starting on April 30 and ban the usage of the platform starting May 1 for existing Japanese residents.
According to a BitMEX announcement, existing Japanese residents will not be able to place orders that would open a new position or increase an existing open position.
Open positions will otherwise not be affected and will continue in accordance with the terms of the relevant contract.
The restrictions are in response to the amendments to the Japan Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and Japan Payment Services Act effective as of May 1, 2020, following the cabinet order earlier this month.
BitMEX has pledged to continue to work with Japanese regulatory authorities to support its aims for the Japanese market.
Ironically, this announcement comes on the heels of Japanese Regulators, including Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA) approving Huobi Global’s native exchange Token (H.T.) as a compliant crypto asset in addition to 25 other compliant tokens. H.T. will begin trading on Huobi Japan in May.
Although BitMEX has retreated from its presence in Japan, the exchange continues to make headway in other geographies, including India, with its investment in CoinDCX in March.
BitMEX announced that it would be launching an ETHUSD Quanto futures contract on May 5, 2020. The new product will be the first of its kind in the market. The ETHUSD futures would be similar to ETHUSD perpetual swaps. BitMEX also launched new perpetual swap contract pair on its platform to trade Ripple (XRP) against USD with leverage in February.
This is not the first time that BitMEX has faced regulators with the exchange reportedly under investigation by the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for allowing U.S. based traders to use its platform in December 2019. Despite the increased scrutiny, the BitMex cold wallet increased by $140M worth of BTC in January.