On Friday, the Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA) named four unregistered cryptocurrency exchanges - Bitget, BitForex, MEXC Global and Bybit - in a warning letter.

The regulator confirmed that the above four cryptocurrency exchanges engaged in the business of trading crypto assets without registration, in violation of the provisions of Article 63-2 of the Fund Settlement Law.

According to Japanese law, all companies operating crypto asset exchanges must register with the Financial Services Agency and the Finance Bureau. However, being on the unregistered warning list does not mean that the current status of the business is also unregistered.

Crypto exchange Binance, which has recently been under investigation by U.S. regulators, was also warned by the Japanese Financial Services Agency in 2018 and in June 2021 for not registering to offer crypto assets. In late 2022, Binance entered the Japanese market legally by acquiring the regulated Sakura Exchange BitCoin a/k/a SEBC.

Japan's local regulation of cryptocurrencies is relatively strict. Defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX Japan is the first FTX subsidiary in the world to start processing customer refunds.