Bitcoin Slips; Yahoo Japan Considers Launch of Crypto Exchange

Investing.com – The prices of Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies slipped on Monday with no clear directional drivers in place, although reports that Yahoo Japan is considering a potential launch of cryptocurrency exchange received some attention.

was trading at $8,480.6 by 12:50AM ET (04:50 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, down 1.0% over the previous 24 hours.

, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was down 0.1% at $522.18 on the Bitfinex exchange.

’s XRP token slipped 0.4% to $0.63103 on the Poloniex exchange.

Meanwhile, was trading 1.6% lower at $157.42.

Yahoo (NASDAQ:) Japan is planning to enter the crypto exchange market, according to reports from Nikkei Asian Review. The Japan-based internet company is considering to acquire up to 40% of BitARG Exchange Tokyo in April and build a full-fledged exchange that would be launched in 2019.

The acquisition would cost Yahoo Japan $19 million, Nikkei said, noting that BitARG already has a licence from the country’s Financial Service Agency (FSA) to operate a cryptocurrency trading platform.

However, BitARG posted a statement on the website following the reports to refute such claims, adding that the company is looking into investment and partnership possibilities but has not made any concrete decisions at the moment.

The FSA has issued a formal warning to the Hong Kong-based Binance last week for unlawfully operating in Japan.

Elsewhere, comments by Brett Redfearn from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission caught some attention as he called the current state of crypto markets the “Wild West”, and that he suggested the crypto exchanges to improve by implementing similar principles of equity markets.

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