Japan Was the Wake-Up Call: Get Ready to Defend Privacy Coins

This is no more apparent than when discussing the current state of privacy coins.

For the most part, Japanese exchanges are listening, pulling four major privacy coins - monero, dash, Augur's reputation, and zcash - from their platforms.

To understand the road ahead, I posit that crypto companies - especially those in the privacy space - should consider the advantages, instead of the disadvantages, that privacy coins will provide to the greater community so that they can better advocate for regulatory leniency in both Japan and beyond.

For a platform to be considered "Immutable," it must provide unprecedented transparency to the exchange, which cannot effectively occur unless there is an added layer of privacy.

Every time a cryptocurrency transaction occurs, a user's information is viewable to the entire community.

It's becoming an undeniable truth that traditional coins will simply not fit the bill.

So where do we go from here? In their assessment of privacy coins, the FSA explicitly stated that a primary justification for its preemptive ban was to eliminate bad actors from being able to conduct criminal activity under the guise of anonymity.

If the hack on CoinCheck was a primary justification for the FSA's decision, then privacy coins were an unfortunate scapegoat.

To ensure a domino effect doesn't occur in countries around the world, crypto companies should take the initiative and educate regulators about the potential value proposition that privacy coins provide to the blockchain industry.

The FSA decision is one of the first instances where a government entity has questioned the status of privacy coins and their ability to positively impact our commercial ecosystem.