Japan Regulates Crypto Like Stocks by 2027 as World Cup Fuels $10B Prediction Surge

Crypto News

The Asia Financial Technology Alliance unveiled its inaugural AFA Awards on June 10, a region-wide recognition program spanning 16 Asian economies including South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India and Taiwan. Each member association may nominate up to seven companies across five categories, led by the Cross-Border Fintech Unicorn Potential grand award and covering infrastructure, compliance, market expansion and fastest growth. Nominations run from June 8 through July 5, with the ceremony set for September 1 in Taipei. Organizers framed the initiative as Asia's first flagship award co-founded by 16 national fintech bodies, aiming to spotlight firms with proven cross-border execution as the region targets becoming the world's largest fintech market by 2030.

Analysts are calling the 2026 FIFA World Cup a watershed for prediction markets, projecting $5 billion to $10 billion in incremental consumer trading volume as the tournament expands to 48 teams and 104 matches. The largely on-chain, DeFi-rooted sector is forecast to reach roughly $240 billion in total volume this year and as much as $1 trillion annually by 2030. Distribution-heavy platforms are tipped as the biggest winners: DraftKings, Robinhood with about 13 million monthly users, and Coinbase, whose Kalshi-linked product crossed $100 million annualized revenue within two months. Compliant venue Kalshi now leads with $17.9 billion in May volume, while Polymarket slipped 14.8% to $7.1 billion.

A pricing dispute on a Hyperliquid-based decentralized exchange exposed the risks of on-chain pre-IPO trading. Trade.xyz issued a June 10 statement defending its SPCX perpetual contract after SpaceX's latest prospectus disclosed a true share count of 13.08 billion, roughly 10% above the 11.87 billion figure markets had long used. That implied a 10% downward revision to the theoretical per-share price. While several centralized exchanges paused and repriced contracts, Trade.xyz insisted its oracle does not rely on share counts, leaving SPCX to gap down passively. Highly leveraged long holders saw positions shrink and faced liquidations, since the HIP-3 framework lacks a traditional rebase mechanism.

South Korea's second-largest exchange, Bithumb, is again at the center of a political scandal after Seoul police formally named chief executive Lee Jae-won a bribery suspect. Investigators are examining whether the exchange hired the son and a political aide of lawmaker Kim Byung-kee in exchange for legislative pressure on rival Upbit and its operator Dunamu. The lawmaker's son was recruited around January 2025 and worked six months, while the aide joined in September 2025. As a member of the National Assembly's finance committee, Kim repeatedly challenged Dunamu's alleged market dominance — moves widely viewed at the time as tailored to benefit Bithumb.

Japan's parliament passed a sweeping bill reclassifying Bitcoin and other digital assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, treating crypto like stocks rather than payment instruments. The Financial Services Agency expects the rules, effective 2027, to lower investor tax burdens and lay groundwork for crypto exchange-traded funds, serving a market of more than 14 million accounts. The law introduces a stock-style insider-trading ban, mandatory disclosure of token supply and finances, and a 2 million yen investment cap on unaudited token offerings. Penalties for unregistered operators rise from three to ten years' imprisonment, with fines up to 10 million yen and expanded criminal-investigation powers.

Singapore's DBS Bank is extending tokenization to retail investors with DBS Physical Gold Tokens, due in the second half of 2026. Each token is backed by one gram of physical gold stored in the bank's Singapore vault, with issuance, custody and distribution handled entirely in-house on bank-grade blockchain infrastructure. The product will launch on the DBS digibank platform, with the lender weighing a parallel listing on its DBS Digital Exchange for accredited and institutional clients. The move rides the broader real-world-asset wave; DBS said gold allocations among its high-net-worth clients more than doubled over three years, underscoring durable demand for hedging assets.

Taken together, these developments trace a single arc: digital assets are being absorbed into mainstream financial architecture — through Japan's securities-grade rulebook, DBS's tokenized gold, and the institutionalization of prediction markets — even as frictions like Bithumb's governance scandal and Trade.xyz's pricing gap expose lingering immaturity. COINOTAG's own aggregate data frames the caution: the Fear & Greed Index sits at 12, deep in extreme fear, a reading often tied to a prolonged bear market, while Bitcoin dominance holds at 70.4% and total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.80 trillion. With Bitcoin trading around $63,000, capital is concentrating in the majors as regulators worldwide tighten oversight.