FTX Japan

Quoine initially launched Quoinex, a fiat-to-crypto trading platform, and later Qryptos, a crypto-to-crypto exchange. In 2017, it became one of the first crypto exchanges to be officially licensed by Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA). The two platforms were eventually merged into a unified portal named Liquid in September 2018. Liquid operated on a matchmaking business model, earning revenue from transaction fees on trades. It offered a user-friendly interface for trading a variety of cryptocurrencies against fiat currencies like JPY, USD, and EUR, and also provided advanced features like margin trading with up to 25x leverage.

In a pivotal move, FTX Trading Ltd. acquired Liquid Group in February 2022 to gain a strategic foothold in the highly regulated Japanese market. Following the acquisition, Quoine Corporation was renamed FTX Japan K.K., and it began integrating FTX's products, offering spot trading and perpetuals to Japanese customers. However, this expansion was short-lived. In November 2022, the parent company FTX collapsed and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leading to the suspension of trading and withdrawals on FTX Japan. Due to Japan's strict regulatory requirements that mandated the segregation of customer assets, FTX Japan's funds were protected from the parent company's broader financial issues. This allowed FTX Japan to resume withdrawals in February 2023, a stark contrast to the situation for millions of other FTX customers globally. In the aftermath, the bankrupt FTX entity sought to sell its solvent subsidiaries, including FTX Japan. Ultimately, Japanese exchange bitFlyer announced its acquisition of FTX Japan in mid-2024, with plans to rebrand the entity and focus on providing crypto custody services for institutional clients, potentially including services for future crypto ETFs.