Yahoo Japan is planning to buy 40% stake in the Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange BitARG. According to an undisclosed source, the deal could be approximately in between 2 billion-3 billion yen. The company released a statement saying that it will buy 40% stake in the crypto exchange and will line up its services sometime in the autumn this year.
The last few days have been quite good for the crypto-market with lots of positive things happening all around. In the last couple of days, around 20% institutional players from the retail exchange have made an entry into the cryptocurrency trading. Similarly, the valuation of the crypto markets has increased by over $70 billion.
And this decision by the biggest online auction company of Japan to buy stakes in the BitARG crypto exchange is a big one. Yahoo Japan is also a highly reputed Financial Service provider in the country. Incidentally, Yahoo Japan is buying the minority stake through its fully-owned subsidiary Z Corporation. BitARG has confirmed that it is allowing this minority stake deal with Z Corporation.
Prior to this announcement and confirmation, Nikkei Asian Review reported last month about this decision of Yahoo Japan to invest in 40% stake of BitARG with plans to go a step further and launch a full-blown exchange next year in April. However, at that time BitARG did not support the story saying that it was studying various possibilities such as business tie-ups with other companies, capital and hence was not sure of its decision.
New Changes And Announcements
Prior to taking this decision, BitARG also took steps to get a license from the Financial Service Agency (FSA) of Japan so that it could launch itself as the domestic cryptocurrency trading platform. Apart from buying a minority stake in BitARG, Yahoo Japan is also planning to increase its stake in the cryptocurrency company by 2019 and become a major operator in BitARG’s operations.
There are several other companies who have slowly started showing their interest in the cryptocurrency trading. Monex, the major online brokerage company of Japan recently bought 100% stake of an ailing cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck whereas banking giant of Japan SBI is all set to venture into the cryptocurrency world with a launch of its own exchange.
