Japan’s Popular Messaging App Line Announces Plans for Crypto Services
The growing popularity of cryptocurrencies among global investors has really turned heads of several big institutions and business to build the products and services around digital currencies. Over the years, Japan has emerged as the hotbed for thriving crypto activities within its boundaries.
Japan’s popular messaging service Line Corporation, has recently announced that it will soon be venturing into the cryptocurrency space by forming a completely new company which will provide digital services like cryptocurrency exchange, loans and insurance.
Line already has its own payment service known as Line Pay which has over 40 million users and churns out $ billion in annual GMV. However, it seems that the company is now eager to establish a footprint in the finch space.
As per the company’s press release, Line’s new division will be called as Line Financial Corporation. Line has also confirmed that it has applied for cryptocurrency license with the Japanese government. Japan has remained as the most crypto-friendly nation where more than a dozen exchanges and other business have been officially given licenses to provide crypto services.
The press release states: “The application process for registration as a virtual currency exchanger has already been started with the Financial Services Agency [FSA], and it is currently under review.“
In its announcement, Line said that it will create a new marketplace within its app itself from where users can trade in cryptos and avail other services of loans and insurance. Apart from these services the company will also be exploring how it can use blockchain technology ahead to develop its platform.
With over 168 million of monthly active users, Line has a strong presence in four key markets like Thailand, Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia. Moreover, the competition in the social messaging app space has remained quite intense over the past few years with dominant players like Facebook-owned WhatsApp, Facebook’s own Messenger, Telegram and others.
Line is also not the first one from its messaging-app community to think of venturing into the crypto space. Telegram founder Pavel Durov has earlier announced that the company is planning to launch something big this year with regards to the crypto space. Reports floating in the media speculate that Telegram will be launching its own blockchain with crypto payment services. reports also suggest that Telegram is planning to build a huge Ethereum like blockchain ecosystem to allow many in the tech business to build their own applications on its platform.
Also, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social media giant Facebook announced early this year that one of the most important things on his list is to study cryptocurrencies by which he probably meant studying its underlying blockchain technology.
It would be interesting to see how things unfold as the year moves ahead.