Japan(and South Korea to some extent) is looking at legalizing ICOs with some guidelines(from cryptocurrency news and Japanese ministry).
1. ICOs have to identify who they are selling to according to KYC(know your customer) guidelines.
2. Cryptocurrency exchanges need minimum standards to list a coin
3. After a coin is listed, trading practices such as insider trading and price controlling should be prohibited to make for fair markets.
4. Exchanges need to tighten up security measures
I actually like these guidelines. Some purists may not like the first one because it goes against the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies but from a country’s perspective, it is necessary to prevent scandals and money laundering. I think once these guidelines pass in japan and/or South Korea, we will see a price bounce overall for Cryptocurrencies as new ICOs come into play. Once one major economic power adopts and allows ICOs, other countries such as the United States and the European Union will soon have to follow suit to not lose out on a competitive edge.
India has banned all institutions that are regulated by its central bank to do transactions with Cryptocurrency. India also has plans to issue a national digital currency and probably wants to rid the marketplace of all competition before that happens. This is more likely a reason the central bank wants to kill Cryptocurrencies rather than to “protect the people”. Financial institutions are all about self-survival and making profit for themselves rather than looking out for the well-being of their customers. This should not have a large effect on the Cryptocurrency market because volume in India has already dropped by 90% in the last few months and most Indian people who are involved in cryptocurrency don’t through a bank anyways.
