Japanese messaging company Line Corp is reportedly gearing up to launch a cryptocurrency exchange,

The report comes just days after fellow tech giant Facebook announced the launch of Libra .

According to Bloomberg , which cites people close to the matter, Line could receive its license this month, with exchange operations expected to begin a few weeks after it gets the green light.

The exchange will be called BitMax (not to be confused with long-serving exchange BitMEX) and will enable Line’s 80 million users in Japan to purchase and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Link ( not $LINK ), the company’s token.

As the home of the now-defunct Mt Gox – which in 2014 was credited with handling more than 70% of Bitcoin‘s transactions worldwide – Japan‘s relationship with cryptocurrencies has been tumultuous to say the least.

Although the most notorious, Mt Gox is not the only Japanese cryptocurrency exchange to disappeared with customers’ funds.

More recently, Coincheck suffered a $530 million hack in January. Although initially thought to have been carried out by North Korean hackers, a recent report now places the blame on Russia .

Japan’s efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies

After struggling to make a decision in terms of how it would approach cryptocurrencies, the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) gave the green light for the industry to regulate itself in October last year.

A couple of months later, in December, reports suggested the country had seen more than 6,000 money laundering cases that involved cryptocurrency in the first nine months of the year alone.

The trend continued well into the year-end. In fact, as previously reported by Hard Fork , during the last three months of 2018, financial regulators received more than 1,000 cryptocurrency related cases, taking the total for the year to 7,096.

In April this year, the FSA raided two cryptocurrency exchanges to enforce anti-money laundering rules.

If Line is serious about catering to the Japanese market, it will need to earn its trust, not an easy feat considering the country’s troublesome history with cryptocurrency.

Hype is killing blockchain technology

I started covering blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in 2015.

At that time, Bitcoin was being increasingly dismissed by mainstream finance, but its underlying decentralized ledger technology was beginning to pique the interest of most innovators in that space.

After a three-year hiatus, I’m back writing about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, and it’s fair to say the industry has matured somewhat, but the rhetoric remains largely the same.

Similarly to what they were saying four years ago, blockchain technology supporters claim it has the potential to transform industries, making each and every one of them more transparent, and efficient.

Many blockchain companies have braved the criticism, and are now joined by newcomers seeking to innovate further and benefit from alternative funding methods such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

Corporates are jumping on the blockchain technology bandwagon, developing pilots, and proofs-of-concept, but little progress has been made outside the confines of their innovation labs.

Venture capital investors are pouring funds into blockchain technology startups as they seek to leverage the ledger’s transformational potential.

This is all great, but I feel that, as is the case with many nascent technologies, it’s mostly speculative.

Although interesting as a technological feat, I think the hype will be detrimental to blockchain’s potential.

Defining blockchain

In its purest form, a blockchain is a distributed ledger – or database – shared across a private or public (think Bitcoin) computer network.

It’s an interesting premise because each computer node in the network holds an entire copy of the database, meaning there’s no single point of failure. Each piece of information is encrypted and added to the chain as a new block.

There are various consensus protocols to guarantee the validity of a new block with other participants before it is added to the chain. Essentially, this helps to prevent fraud or double spending without the need to have a central authority.

Blockchain may be a solution but, what’s the problem?

Blockchain’s notion of decentralization seemed particularly interesting in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis as consumers’ trust in banking declined, but ask yourself this question: what problem, or problems, is blockchain technology trying to solve, and why?

In some instances, many of its purported use cases (payments, voting, digital ID, etc) amounts to little more than the willingness to add a distributed and encrypted ledger where one was not really needed.

The technology has been lauded as a viable option to replace legacy systems, which have worked for many decades. But, what if there’s no need for a distributed, decentralized ledger after all?

What if a decade after Bitcoin and its blockchain first burst on the scene, no one has adopted a decentralized ledger at scale because they don’t actually need or want to?

So, why the skepticism?

By seeking to replace intermediaries such as banks and governments, blockchain technology is, on principle, infused with libertarian ideology.

Although the technology is not inherently or entirely political, it does bother me that much of the hype surrounding it comes from mainstream institutions and institutional investors, which by the way, are the very organizations it sought to circumvent in the first place.

This kind of attention, before blockchain has actually reached an acceptable level of maturity, only serves to inflate expectations about its capabilities to an untenable level, setting it up for disappointment from the get-go.

Is blockchain transforming industries in 2019? I’m afraid not. Could it? Perhaps, if it’s left to mature like a good wine.

Personally, I think the only way blockchain will succeed is if we collectively manage to drown out the hype and instead focus on solving real-world problems at a scale the technology can handle.

I’m tired of reading about how blockchain could improve the way we do things. I’d like to see blockchain out in the wild, applied where there’s a real needfor it, because let’s face it, this has been a long time coming.

US presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to fix ‘confusing’ cryptocurrency regulations (and give $1,000 to everyone)

Move over John McAfee , there’s a new kid on the block, and they just cemented their position as the cryptocurrency presidential candidate for the 2020 election race.

Andrew Yang released a statement on cryptocurrency and digital assets yesterday, making a bid to regulate virtual assets if elected.

If Yang wins the 2020 race he wants to promote innovation and economic growth by creating clear guidelines for digital assets. He thinks people and businesses should be able to invest without fear of a sudden random change in regulations.

The presidential candidate believes the underlying challenge that needs to be addressed is the uncertainty and confusion of the US’ current cryptocurrency regulations.

He points out that several US federal agencies have taken it upon themselves to try to regulate the industry, but now the country has to deal with a “patchwork of varying regulations.” Yang believes the US has to do better if it’s going to compete in the cryptocurrency space with the likes of China and Europe.

Yang says the US government needs to do more, and act faster, to create a countrywide framework for regulating these assets, though. He says he’ll work with the Token Taxonomy Act and Wyoming legislators, and will model his regulations after their work.

“It’s time for the federal government to create clear guidelines as to how cryptocurrencies/digital asset markets will be treated and regulated,” the announcement reads.

Why do cryptocurrencers love Yang?

Yang has been slowly, but surely, carving himself a foothold amongst the cryptocurrency crowd, becoming a particular favorite on “Crypto Twitter.”

The Democratic candidate started to gain traction after his campaign started accepting donations in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a handful of other coins last July.

In a Facebook “Ask Me Anything” he also declared himself a fan of blockchain‘s “underlying technology.” His apparent pro-cryptocurrency stance has earned himself a band of dedicated followers who call themselves the “ Yang Gang .”

He’s also a big proponent of a $1,000 per month “Universal Basic Income,” for US citizens over the age of 18.

But hey, it’s not like politicians always see through on their promises. Take that for what you will, but Yang is certainly doing his best to capture the hearts and minds of hodlers across the US.

Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .