First Exchange in Japan adds Polkadot to their portfolio

As of today one of Japans biggest exchanges, BitFlyer, added Polkadot to their portfolio. Effectively opening up the Japanese market to Polkadot. (Before you only could get it through trading off of exchanges.)

To celebrate this they are doing a lottery where 15 lucky winners get 50.000 Yen (roughly 450$) if they buy Polkadot between 29th June and 21st July.

https://blog-jp.bitflyer.com/n/nd545aea41108 (The blog entry is in Japanese.)

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A bit of context to the crypto situation in Japan:

In Japan are all exchanges regulated by the Financial Service Agency https://www.fsa.go.jp/. So, exchanges can't just go around and add cryptocurrencies as they want. They have to apply to the FSA and get the green light to offer new cryptocurrencies. Here (PDF file) you can see the list of exchanges and which currency they are allowed to handle. It's in Japanese but you can read the abbreviations of the cryptocurrencies on the right site.

On one hand it's really nice because you can't get involved in shitcoins if you don't do your own research and get off of the exchanges to trade for coins. So, it's not that easy for naive people to fall for scams.

On the other hand it's a mayor pain in the a...rse to get your hands on newer or other reputable coins. Also, trading fees and creating taxable events every time you want another coin is something to consider.