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According to the Nikkei, Japan’s Cabinet formally approved an amendment to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA) on April 10. This amendment marks the first time that crypto assets (virtual currencies) have been brought under Japan’s financial instruments regulatory framework. It explicitly prohibits insider trading based on non-public information and requires issuers to make annual disclosures. Regulatory authority over crypto assets will thus shift formally from the Payment Services Act to the FIEA; accordingly, registered operators’ official designation will change from “Crypto Asset Exchange Operators” to “Crypto Asset Trading Operators.” Regarding penalties, the maximum term of imprisonment for unlicensed crypto asset sales operations has been increased from three years to ten years, and the maximum fine has risen from ¥3 million to ¥10 million.
According to an article published by Caixin titled “Financial Innovation or Insider Trading? The Rise and Controversy of Polymarket,” when insider information can be openly monetized, the boundary of prediction markets has already become blurred—raising questions about whether such markets are merely “gambling” disguised as finance, or even涉嫌 insider trading. Yet regardless of the legal debate over whether such activities constitute gambling, the fact that Polymarket uses the USDC stablecoin for settlement and delivery itself poses a significant legal risk for participants within China. Previously, U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Amy Klobuchar introduced the “End Prediction Market Corruption Act,” which prohibits the President, Vice President, and members of Congress from trading on prediction markets and requires that the prediction market trading activities of their spouses and dependents be included in annual financial disclosures.