Japan passes law to regulate virtual money dealing

Japan's House of Councillors passed a revised law Wednesday to regulate the dealings of virtual currencies including bitcoin, so as to prevent their use in terrorism or money laundering and protect the interests of the owners.

According to the revised law, virtual currencies could be used for settlement. But exchanges dealing virtual currencies shall be registered with the Financial Services Agency.

The Financial Services Agency will supervise and has the right to check and suspend the operations of the exchanges and ask the exchanges to improve their performance.

The revised law will come into force within a year since its enactment.

The government has been seeking to strengthen regulation of virtual currencies since the sudden shutdown in 2014 of the Japanese bitcoin exchange MtGox Co. which is said to lose bitcoin worth 48 billion yen at the time.

(APD)