Bitget Wallet has joined Japan’s Blockchain Collaborative Consortium as the country develops new rules for crypto services and regulators examine how self-custodial platforms should be treated.
In a statement shared with crypto.news, Bitget Wallet said its membership in the Blockchain Collaborative Consortium, or BCCC, will give the company a place in Japanese industry discussions covering wallet standards, decentralized finance, stablecoins and the treatment of services where users control their own private keys.
The self-custodial wallet serves more than 100 million users and supports integrations with over 130 blockchains. Its entry into BCCC brings the wallet into formal industry policy discussions in Japan for the first time.
BCCC was founded in 2016 as Japan’s first blockchain industry association and now represents more than 270 companies and organizations. The consortium operates committees covering areas such as blockchain technology, financial services, DeFi and stablecoins, where members discuss use cases and regulatory issues and engage with policymakers.
Bitget Wallet enters Japan’s self-custody discussions
The membership comes after new Japanese rules for cryptocurrency service intermediaries took effect in June, putting more attention on the regulatory distinction between custodial businesses and platforms that do not take control of customer assets.
A custodial service holds assets or private keys on behalf of its customers. With a self-custody wallet, users retain their private keys and are responsible for authorizing transactions themselves.
Bitget Wallet plans to use its BCCC membership to share experience gained from operating across international markets while taking part in discussions about how self-custodial services should work under Japan’s developing framework.
“Japan is one of the few markets where technology development and regulatory clarity are advancing in parallel,” Bitget Wallet COO Alvin Kan said.
Kan said self-custody is becoming part of the country’s formal policy debate, creating a need for standards that protect users while taking account of how self-custodial products operate.
“We want to bring practical experience from global markets into that conversation and help build frameworks that are useful for users and workable for the industry,” he added.
Bitget Wallet has been expanding its products beyond basic token storage and on-chain transfers. In July, the company introduced Assetback, a feature allowing eligible card users to automatically convert purchase rewards into assets including Bitcoin, tokenized gold, tokenized U.S. equities and $USDC.
At the time, Bitget Wallet said it had more than 100 million users and that spending through its card had nearly tripled during the first half of 2026. The company reported monthly crypto card payment volume of $656 million in May, compared with $271 million a year earlier, though the figures were company-provided and had not been independently audited.
Japan has expanded its crypto regulatory framework
Japan has been changing several parts of its digital asset rules during 2026, covering taxation, market regulation and the government structure responsible for supervising the sector.
The Financial Services Agency established a dedicated Cryptocurrency and Stablecoin Division in August, placing crypto supervision, digital payment planning and related innovation work under a standalone department.
The restructuring followed legislative work to move cryptocurrencies into the framework used for financial instruments. Japan’s lower house in June advanced a crypto bill that would classify digital assets as financial instruments under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
The legislation provides a route toward regulated crypto exchange-traded funds and introduces insider trading and compliance provisions for the sector. It is tied to plans to eventually apply a 20% tax rate to crypto gains, replacing a system under which some investors have faced substantially higher rates.
Japan’s regulatory work has run alongside enforcement against companies providing services in the country without the required authorization.
Bitget exchange is withdrawing from Japan
The BCCC membership involves Bitget Wallet, a self-custodial product, while the Bitget centralized cryptocurrency exchange has faced a different regulatory position in Japan.
As crypto.news previously reported, Bitget began withdrawing exchange services from Japan in August after repeated warnings from local regulators.
The exchange stopped accepting new registrations from Japanese residents and set Nov. 1 as the date when restrictions would begin applying to existing resident accounts. Positions still open on Dec. 31 are scheduled to be closed automatically.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency had warned Bitget in March 2023 over allegations that it provided cryptocurrency services to residents without registration. A second FSA warning followed in November 2024.
Regulatory action continued in June 2025 when the Kanto Local Finance Bureau issued a warning to BTG Technology Holdings Limited, which it identified as operating under the Bitget name. The bureau said the company had solicited online over-the-counter derivatives transactions without the necessary registration.
Bitget Wallet, by comparison, does not take custody of users’ private keys. Its BCCC participation will focus partly on how Japanese rules distinguish services built around direct user control of assets from businesses that hold assets for customers.
BCCC membership opens wallet standards discussions
Through BCCC’s committees, Bitget Wallet plans to participate in work covering DeFi regulation, wallet standards and consumer understanding of self-custody.
The consortium’s membership spans companies and organizations from different parts of Japan’s blockchain industry, giving participants a common forum to discuss technical and regulatory issues with other businesses and policymakers.
For Bitget Wallet, the discussions come as its product has increasingly combined self-custodial asset management with payment functions. The company previously integrated Solana Pay to support direct $USDC and SOL transactions and has developed card and merchant payment services across several international markets.
Its BCCC work will draw on that operating experience as Japanese policymakers continue considering rules for crypto intermediaries and the regulatory treatment of services where customers retain control over their private keys.
