RedotPay buys Japan's BTCBOX, winds down unlicensed Japan service

Crypto payment-card company RedotPay says it has acquired BTCBOX, a registered Japanese crypto exchange, while admitting that its own service for people living in Japan does not meet the country's licensing rules. The announcement came in a notice to Japanese users on RedotPay's help centre, updated around 19–20 October and picked up by Japanese crypto media this week.

What RedotPay is changing in Japan

• No new customers: sign-ups from Japan have been suspended.
• App removed: the RedotPay app is no longer offered in Japan's App Store and Google Play.
• Phase-out: services for existing Japan residents will be restricted step by step and eventually ended, with details to follow. Users outside Japan are not affected, according to Japanese outlet JinaCoin.

The company says it does not hold a Japanese crypto-asset exchange registration or other required licences. Japan's Financial Services Agency requires any business that exchanges or holds crypto for Japanese residents to register, and it has pushed unregistered foreign platforms out before.

Why BTCBOX

RedotPay says it picked BTCBOX for its long track record and team, and that it will support the exchange financially and technically as its parent. The plan is for BTCBOX to offer Japan-compliant services to local customers once ready. The notice did not give a price, a closing date or the size of the stake.

• BTCBOX was founded in 2014 and registered as a crypto-asset exchange operator in September 2017, among the first in Japan.
• It suspended all services in late January 2026 after a leak of customer information and began reopening in stages from 3 August, adding passkey logins.
• JinaCoin reports that BTCBOX had posted no announcement about the deal as of 24 October and briefly paused all services again on 22 October.

Why it matters

Japan is one of the strictest markets for crypto licensing, and buying a registered firm is the usual shortcut for foreign players. Binance took the same route by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin in 2022. Japan's big banks are also moving into digital money, with the three megabanks completing a joint yen stablecoin pilot.

For RedotPay's Japanese users, the practical step is to watch for the follow-up notice and plan withdrawals before access is cut. Moving funds to a wallet you control is covered in our guide to storing crypto safely; if you are weighing a new platform, compare the trade-offs in centralized vs decentralized exchanges.