Japan Has 3.5 Million Cryptocurrency Traders

Data from Japan’s Financial Services Agency shows that about 3.5 million people are involved in cryptocurrency. The data collected from 17 cryptocurrency exchanges puts Japan firmly as one of the cryptocurrency trading centres globally.

Those in their 30s constituted the largest population of traders at 3c4% followed by those in the 20s at 28%. These two groups make up the largest portion of cryptocurrency traders in the country.

They are followed by those in their 40s who account for 22% of the trading population. The information is based on data collected as of March 31, 2018.

The data also reveals that more than 142,000 Japanese traders have invested in cryptocurrency futures and margin trading.

Volumes have grown markedly from just $22 million as at March 2014 to $97 billion when the study was done. Trading on bitcoin futures, margins and credits grew from just $2 million in 2014 to $543 billion in 2017.

Older traders tend to participate in this kind of trading the study shows. The Japanese Yen is the most common fiat paired with BTC.

BTC, ETH, XRP Most Popular

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin are the most popular currencies being traded.

Japan has recently been cracking down on cryptocurrency exchanges after several high profile hackings in the country. The latest to be hit was Coincheck which lost more than $380 million worth of NEM tokens in January after the exchange was hacked.

In 2014, another exchange known as Mt Gox was attacked resulting in the loss of 850,000 bitcoin belonging to its customers. It subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Before going down, Mt Gox accounted for over 70% of all bitcoin transactions worldwide.

The regulator hopes the data that was gathered will help shed more light on factors driving the relatively new industry. The FSA also hopes to bring more transparency to an industry that has largely been seen as opaque. The body says this is the first step towards understanding institutional issues facing the industry in Japan.

Bitcoin was just released in 2009 as an open source software but its capitalisation has since reached $129 billion as at April 12, 2018.  This is despite recent massive losses that saw its value drop significantly.