Yahoo! Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Taotao Confirms May 30 Launch

[Mercury]

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Taotao will launch its trading service on May 30, Cointelegraph Japan reported Monday, quoting a social media update.

Taotao, which is 40% owned by internet giant Yahoo! Japan’s YJFX, will initially offer trading in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).

Margin trading will also be available in litecoin (LTC), XRP and bitcoin cash (BCH) in addition to BTC and ETH.

The start date brings to a close a year-long process since Yahoo! Japan closed the 40% percent equity deal in the exchange, then called BitARG, in April 2018.

The company paid a rumored 2 billion yen for the stake, which comes amid increasing interest in the Japanese exchange sector.

Taotao had originally planned a market debut in mid-May, but postponed the move at the last minute without stating its motivation.

As Cointelegraph reported, the ongoing cryptocurrency bull market that began in April has fuelled a surge in popularity among new Japanese traders. Last week, several domestic platforms reported up to threefold increases in new account openings.

Regulators, meanwhile, continue to tightly control the market following several highly-publicized hacks last year, the largest of which saw losses in excess of half a billion dollars from Coincheck.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency has announced it will review exchanges’ Anti-Money Laundering (AML) activities ahead of an international inspection by the Financial Action Task Force.

Within the international exchange sector, market heavyweight Binance — which was also recently hacked — last week further hinted it would soon launch margin trading as part of a major update.

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