- Exchange will halt services in Japan on January 22.
- Regulatory pressure has previously forced exits from likes of Binance.
- Experts say Bybit may look to return to Japan via an acquisition deal.
Bybit will stop providing services to Japanese residents in January, bowing to relentless pressure from financial regulators.
When users with Japanese IP addresses access the Bybit website, they are confronted with a message that reads: “Service not available in your country/region.”
“As part of Bybit’s proactive efforts to comply with Japanese regulations, we have decided to terminate services for customers residing in Japan,” the exchange said in an announcement reported by the Japanese media outlet CoinPost.
“Please note that if you are a Japanese resident, your account will be subject to gradual account restrictions starting in 2026.”
The move comes after years of pressure from the Financial Services Agency, or FSA, Japan’s top financial regulator, which has previously forced the likes of Binance to stop accepting customers with Japanese addresses.
A gradual exit
Bybit said that if users have been mistakenly identified as Japanese residents, they should update or complete proof of address checks “to ensure continued access.”
“Please note that if you do not complete [these checks] by January 22, 2026, you will be considered a Japanese resident,” Bybit warned.
The FSA last year issued a third official warning to Bybit, along with the rival exchanges KuCoin, Bitcastle, MEXC, and Bitget.
The regulator’s first warning to Bybit came in May 2021, with a second caution following in March 2023.
The exchange has responded with a gradual retreat from the Japanese market, removing its app from Japanese stores in February and suspending new account registrations in October.
Following the FSA’s move to regulate exchanges in 2017, the regulator has been waging war on overseas trading platforms that accept customers from Japan by offering Japanese-language services.
Regulator’s threats
In 2018, the FSA threatened Binance with legal action if it did not comply with its regulations. Binance has since responded by buying an FSA-issued operating permit-holding Japanese exchange.
CoinPost reported that some analysts expect that Bybit, which has many Japanese customers, may have made its recent move as part of a “step towards officially entering the Japanese market.”
“Binance took a similar route in the past,” the outlet wrote, noting that Sakura Exchange Bitcoin, the exchange Binance acquired in late 2022, relaunched as Binance Japan in August 2023.
Bybit claims to have over 70 million users globally, and the media outlet wrote that its withdrawal from the Japanese market is “expected to affect many [domestic] users.”
Tim Alper is a news correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.
