Japan’s parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday that reclassifies cryptocurrency as a “financial asset,” a shift that pulls bitcoin and other digital assets out of the country’s payments regime and into the framework that governs stocks, bonds, and investment trusts, according to a report from public broadcaster NHK.

The change strips crypto of its prior status under the Payment Services Act, where regulators treated it as a means of settlement, and folds it into the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), the same statute that oversees traditional securities. 

The amendment moves bitcoin and other crypto under a single investor-protection standard. NHK…

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