Overview
- Japan’s lower house approved a bill to reclassify most cryptocurrencies under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, transferring oversight from payment law to securities rules.
- The legislation, advanced on June 11, 2026, sets a flat 20% tax on crypto gains that the government plans to start on January 1, 2028.
- New rules will apply stock-style insider-trading bans, stricter disclosure and custody standards, and raise penalties including increasing the maximum prison term for unregistered operators to 10 years.
- The FIEA route creates an explicit pathway for crypto exchange-traded funds and has already prompted firms and banks to prepare products and stablecoin pilots while asset managers file ETF proposals.
- Analysts say the move will lower barriers for big institutional investors but raise compliance costs that could force consolidation among smaller exchanges over the next year as the bill moves to the upper house and then to implementation.