In this week’s selected cryptocurrency- and blockchain-related news from Cointelegraph Japan, Bitflyer adds the Ether (ETH)/yen pair to its trading platform, the official website Ethereum.org adds a Japanese language version, while Monex CEO Oki Matsumoto says that Facebook opened Pandora’s box with its stablecoin project, Libra.
Here is the past week of cryptocurrency and blockchain news in review, as originally reported by Cointelegraph Japan.
BitFlyer adds Ether/Japanese yen pair to its trading platform
On Sept. 25, Cointelegraph Japan reported that the Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer was adding the Ether/yen pair (ETH/JPY) to “BitFlyer Lightning”, a virtual currency trading tool for professionals.
That same day, Cointelegraph reported that BitFlyer was adding five new altcoins to its platforms in Europe and the United States. In Europe, the exchange will add Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), Lisk (LSK) and Monacoin (MONA), while U.S. customers will have access to BCH, ETC and LTC.
Blockchain consortium aims to build commercial use case in 2020
On Sept. 25, the CBSG Consortium, which is led by U.S.-based blockchain technology company TBCASoft, and Japanese holding company SoftBank, announced plans to build a commercial use case for payment systems using blockchains in early 2020.
Softbank’s executive officer Nozaki Daichi said that CBSG's efforts to build a commercial use case offer a great opportunity to differentiate itself from its competitors.
Ethereum.org now supports the Japanese language
On Sept. 27, the official website of the Ethereum network added support for the Japanese language. Ethereum.org is now offering its content in five different languages: English, French, Korean, simplified Chinese and Japanese. Support for the Japanese language was made possible because of the joined effort of volunteers, according to Masaharu Uno of Ethereum Japan.
Crypto exchange Bitpoint Japan will resume its services on Sept. 30
The cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint Japan announced that it will resume its cryptocurrency delivery service on Sept. 30.
Bitpoint halted all of its services including trading, deposits and withdrawals when it noticed irregular withdrawals from its hot wallet in July, which resulted in a loss of $32 million in crypto assets.
Monex CEO Oki Matsumoto shares his view on Libra
On Sept. 27, Cointelegraph Japan reported that Oki Matsumoto, the CEO of Japan's financial services giant Monex Group, said that Facebook’s Libra announcement “opened Pandora's box.”
He further explained that the criticism of what Facebook can do with Libra in developed countries is largely composed of two elements.
Firstly, Matsumoto stated that there is widespread distrust of Facebook’s management of personal information, as some are concerned that the privacy of users will be infringed.
The second critical element is that Libra could prevent the implementation of monetary policy in developing nations.