How P2P crypto works, and why Japan is different
P2PPeer-to-peer: two people swap crypto and money directly, without an exchange acting as buyer or seller. trading means two people swap crypto for money directly. On the big offshore platforms, a seller posts an ad on a board ("1 USDT = ¥167, bank transfer or PayPay"), a buyer clicks it, and the yen moves straight from one person's account to the other's. The platform's only job is escrowA neutral party holds the crypto until the seller confirms payment, then releases it to the buyer.: it locks the seller's coins until the seller confirms the money has arrived.
If you came from a country where that is the normal way to buy crypto, Japan works the other way round. Here the on-ramp is a licensed domestic exchange. It either sells to you itself as a dealer desk (販売所, hanbaijo) or matches your order with other users on an order book. Either way, it has checked your identity with your residence card or My Number card, and it only accepts yen from a bank account in your own name. That closed loop is the whole point of the system: everyone who touches the money is known.
P2P sits outside that loop, and that is both its appeal and its problem. You don't know who your counterparty is, you can't tell where their yen came from, and if something goes wrong there is very little to fall back on. In Japan that matters more than the price. The rest of this guide covers the law, real arrests, the bank-account risk, the platforms and, last, the price.
Is P2P crypto legal in Japan?
Japanese law doesn't ban P2P as a format. What it regulates is a crypto-asset exchange businessJapan's licensed category for buying, selling or exchanging crypto, or brokering such trades, as a business (暗号資産交換業).. Under Article 2(15) of the Payment Services Act (資金決済法), buying, selling or exchanging crypto, or intermediating (媒介, baikai) such trades, counts as that business when it is done "as a business" (業として, gyō toshite). Article 63-2 says only firms registered with the Prime Minister, in practice the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the local finance bureaus, may do it.
The FSA's supervisory guidelines explain "as a business" with two tests: is it aimed at the public, and is it repeated and continuous? Conduct can qualify even at the stage where repetition is merely expected. So selling some bitcoin to a friend once is generally outside the rules. Posting offers on X, LINE groups or a P2P board and trading with strangers for profit, again and again, very likely is not, even if you are a private individual with a day job. The guidelines even flag the trick of running a harmless-looking ad and then steering people to a chat app where the actual exchange happens.
Running the marketplace is clearer still. Matching buyers and sellers, hosting chat and settling disputes is intermediation, and holding coins in escrow can add custody. A new registered intermediary category that took effect on 1 June 2026 only covers routing customers to registered exchanges. It does not make unregistered user-to-user matching legal.
The penalty for an unregistered exchange business today is up to 3 years in prison and/or a ¥3 million fine (Article 107), plus a ¥3 million fine for a company involved. In July 2026 the Diet passed a law moving crypto trading under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Once its crypto provisions take effect, by about July 2027 at the latest, unregistered crypto trading falls under that act's penalties of up to 10 years and ¥10 million. Our guide to crypto regulation in Japan covers the wider picture.
A note on how to read this
This section is our reading of the statute and the FSA's published guidelines, not legal advice. Whether a given pattern of trades counts as a business depends on the facts. If you need a firm answer, ask a Japanese lawyer (bengoshi).
Arrests of "aitai-ya" P2P dealers
People who swap cash or e-money for crypto one-to-one are known in Japan as aitai-yaSlang for individuals or groups who swap cash or e-money for crypto one-to-one, usually recruiting customers on social media (相対屋). (相対屋). Police have been arresting them for running an unregistered exchange business. These are the cases we could pin to a date and a source:
- March 2022FSA warning to an individual The FSA issued a formal warning to a person in Roppongi who was exchanging crypto through social media. It was a precedent for naming a private individual, not a company.
- June 2025A "crypto OTC trading group" Tokyo and Aichi police took down a group that cashed out crypto bought with phone-scam proceeds. It was charged under the organised-crime law (National Police Agency JAFIC annual report).
- 14 Jan 2026Tokyo police arrest a 22-year-old in Shinjuku He allegedly bought Litecoin from people he met on social media and resold it to buyers recruited the same way, adding a 15% fee (Nikkei).
- 21 Oct 2026Miyazaki police re-arrest three men A father and son, both Tokyo company executives, and a man from Chiba allegedly converted about ¥53.9 million in cash from four customers into crypto over 90 transactions, earning about ¥1.03 million in fees. They had first been arrested in September 2026 on money-laundering suspicion (UMK via Yahoo News).
Japanese media also reported arrests in Gunma (three men who advertised "no ID needed", took e-money and sent crypto to offshore casino accounts), in Kyoto (a university student from Osaka who solicited trades on X) and in Hiroshima (a company executive charging 1.5–3%). The original articles have since been taken down and we couldn't confirm their dates, so they are not in the timeline.
One more pattern deserves attention if you have family abroad. The National Police Agency's 2025 money-laundering risk assessment describes "underground banks" that buy crypto with yen in Japan and sell it P2P overseas. To an investigator, sending money home by buying USDT here and having a relative sell it on a P2P board there looks exactly like that. For remittances, use your bank or a licensed money-transfer service.
The seller's risk: scam money and frozen bank accounts
If you sell crypto on P2P and take payment by bank transfer, the biggest danger isn't the price. It is triangulation fraud. A scammer convinces a victim to "invest" by wiring yen to your account, and then collects the crypto from you. You think you made an honest sale, but the money in your account belongs to a fraud victim. When the victim reports it, your account is the one the bank looks at.
The numbers behind this are big. The National Police Agency puts 2024 losses at ¥71.88 billion for phone scams and ¥127.19 billion for social-media investment and romance scams, both records. 86.2% of investment-scam payments and 73.8% of romance-scam payments went by bank transfer. A P2P seller's account is exactly the kind of landing spot these schemes need.
Japan's Furikome Fraud Relief Act (振り込め詐欺救済法) tells banks to suspend an account when they suspect, for example on police information, that it was used for crime, including accounts used to pass the money along. The Deposit Insurance Corporation then publishes a notice, and the deposit can be forfeited unless the holder files a claim or sues within the claim period of at least 60 days. Your salary, rent and phone bills probably all run through that account.
Selling or handing over your own accounts is worse. Giving someone your crypto exchange login is a crime under the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds, with penalties of up to 3 years and ¥5 million, or 5 years and ¥10 million if done as a business. The police have specifically noted a rise in foreign students selling their accounts. If anyone offers you money to "borrow" your bank or exchange account, that is the scam. More patterns are in our guide to crypto scams in Japan.
Red flags from a P2P counterparty
Payment from an account in a different name, a payment split into several transfers, a buyer in a hurry or offering above market, or a message after the trade saying they "sent too much by mistake" and asking for a refund. Each is a common sign of scam money or a misused account.
Can you use Binance P2P in Japan? Platform by platform
Binance P2P is the default yen-to-USDT venue in many countries, so it's the first thing many newcomers search for. For Japan residents it's closed. Binance (global) stopped serving Japan residents on 1 December 2023. Accounts that didn't move to Binance Japan became withdraw-only, and unsupported coins were converted to BTC. The FSA-registered Binance Japan (Kanto Local Finance Bureau No. 00031) has no yen P2P market. Its "Binance Pay" feature, launched in November 2024, only lets Binance Japan users send crypto to each other, with no yen involved. What Binance Japan does offer, including PayPay Money purchases, is in our Binance Japan review.
The rest of the big offshore names have gone the same way. Bybit switched Japan-resident accounts to close-only from 23 March 2026, naming P2P explicitly, liquidated what was left on 22 July and now offers Japan residents only conversions and withdrawals. OKX lists Japan as a "Restricted Location". Bitget's terms call it a "Prohibited Country", and its Japan accounts go close-only on 1 November 2026. Paxful shut down completely by 1 November 2025, and LocalBitcoins stopped trading back on 16 February 2023. The full history is in our offshore exchanges guide.
| Platform | Japan residents | Yen P2P | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binance Japan FSA-registered | Yes | None | Binance Pay is crypto-only. You can buy with PayPay Money or a bank deposit |
| Binance (global) Offshore | Ended 1 Dec 2023 | Yen ads exist | FSA warnings in 2018 and 2021 |
| Bybit Offshore | Close-only from 23 Mar 2026; exit done in July | Yen ads exist | Close-only explicitly covered P2P |
| OKX Offshore | Restricted Location | Yen ads exist | Its registered Japanese affiliate OKJ (No. 00020) has no P2P that we found |
| Bitget Offshore | Prohibited Country | Yen ads exist | Japan accounts close-only from 1 Nov 2026 |
| Paxful / LocalBitcoins | Closed | — | Paxful by Nov 2025, LocalBitcoins in Feb 2023 |
You may still see yen ads on offshore boards that list "LINE Pay" as a payment method. LINE Pay in Japan is gone: new sign-ups stopped in November 2024, top-ups in March 2025 and transfers in April 2025, and the service had ended by 30 April 2025 (LY Corporation notice). It still runs in Taiwan and Thailand, but in Japan an ad offering it is stale at best.
That leaves the non-custodialThe platform never holds your coins. Escrow runs on multisig or Lightning contracts between the two traders. tools: Hodl Hodl (0.75% fee per side, multisig escrow), Bisq (it even has a "Japan Bank Furikomi" payment method), RoboSats (0.2% in total, over Lightning) and Peach (2%). None of them asks for ID, none excludes Japan in its terms, and none is on the FSA's warning list. What they lack is yen. On 22 October 2026 Hodl Hodl showed a single yen offer, and it listed "Line Pay". Peach had zero bank-transfer offers in yen, only about 15 using Revolut or Wise. We couldn't confirm any yen volume on Bisq or RoboSats. Also note that the "as a business" test applies to you, the user, whatever software you use.
What P2P costs: a one-time snapshot of yen markups
P2P sellers price their ads above the market rate, and the gap is the real cost of the trade. We couldn't find any published series for yen P2P premiums, so on 22 October 2026 at about 18:25 Japan time we pulled the yen USDT ads once from the platforms' public data. Our reference rate was about ¥158 per dollar (the ECB's rate the day before was 157.88). This is one snapshot, not a trend, and these boards exclude Japan residents under their own terms. We show it to put a number on the price of skipping KYC, not to suggest you use them.
| Venue and side | Yen per USDT | vs about ¥158 |
|---|---|---|
| Binance P2P, buying (cheapest bank-transfer ad) | ¥166.90 | +5.6% |
| Binance P2P, buying (PayPay ads) | ¥176.6–187 | +12% to +18% |
| Bybit P2P, buying (cheapest ad) | ¥165.00 | +4.5% |
| OKX P2P, buying (cheapest bank-transfer ad) | ¥167.99 | +6.3% |
| Binance P2P, selling (best bank-transfer bid) | ¥155.29 | −1.7% |
| OKX P2P, selling (large PayPay bids) | ¥150.7–154.5 | −2% to −4.6% |
In that snapshot, buyers paid roughly 4.5–6% over the market by bank transfer and 12–18% via PayPay, while sellers got about the market rate or up to 4.6% less. That spread prices in KYC avoidance plus the risk of fraud, chargebacks and frozen accounts. Bybit's board even looked "crossed", with buy ads above sell ads, which makes us doubt some of the ads were real. We couldn't verify who the advertisers were.
Registered Japanese exchanges showed nothing similar. At the same moment Coincheck's BTC/JPY price was about ¥12.84 million, with bitbank and GMO Coin almost identical. Converted at the reference rate, the dollar price was 0.45–0.6% higher, which is FX timing noise, not a "Japan premium". On ¥100,000, a 5% markup leaves you with about ¥4,800 less crypto, and a 15% markup about ¥13,000 less. Try your own numbers in the calculator at the top of the page, and compare real exchange costs on our fee comparison.
P2P gains are still taxable
For Japanese tax purposes, a gain from a P2P sale is the same as a gain on an exchange. It is miscellaneous incomeJapan's catch-all income category (雑所得). Crypto gains are added to salary and taxed at progressive rates., added to your salary and taxed at 5–45% national income tax plus 10% resident tax, so up to 55% in total. Swapping one coin for another, or paying for something with crypto, also counts as a disposal. If you are a salaried worker with one employer and your other income is ¥200,000 or less, you may not need to file a national return, but the resident-tax declaration is still separate.
P2P trades come with no annual statement from an exchange, so keep your own record of each date, amount, price and counterparty. The planned 20% flat tax, enacted in March 2026 and expected to start in 2028 at the earliest, only applies to sales through registered exchanges. P2P and offshore sales are expected to stay under the progressive rates. See our Japan crypto tax guide, and if your residency status is changing, moving to or leaving Japan with crypto.
Safer ways to get crypto in Japan
Most reasons people look at P2P have a licensed answer. If you live in Japan with a residence card and an address, you can open an account at most domestic exchanges. Our guide to crypto for foreigners in Japan goes through visa status, My Number and US-person rules. Once you're verified:
- Small amounts
- bitFlyer and SBI VC Trade sell from ¥1, Coincheck from about ¥500. Our step-by-step bitcoin guide walks through it.
- Paying with PayPay
- Binance Japan accepts PayPay Money and can send sale proceeds back to PayPay. See buying crypto with PayPay.
- No bank transfer
- Coincheck, BitTrade and Zaif take konbini deposits, at roughly ¥500–1,000 a time. All options are on our ways to pay page.
- Crypto to yen
- Sell on a domestic exchange and withdraw to your own bank account. See how to cash out crypto in Japan.
- ¥10 million and up
- Use a registered OTC desk, not a dealer on X. Our OTC desk guide lists them.
Always check a firm's number on the list of FSA-registered exchanges. Tourists without a Japanese bank account usually stick with the app they use at home or an international platform that accepts foreign cards. The buttons on this site lead to CEX.IO, which is registered as a money services business with FinCEN in the US, licensed as a money transmitter in many US states and registered with the UK FCA as a cryptoasset business. It takes Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay. It is not registered with Japan's FSA, doesn't support yen, and lists Japan among its unsupported countries, so it is for visitors and non-residents, not for people living here. For cash, our crypto ATM guide covers the handful of machines in Tokyo and Osaka.
If you still trade privately: a checklist
Handing some crypto to a family member or settling up with a friend can happen. If you do it, stick to these rules. If you can't tick every box, use a registered exchange instead.
- Don't advertise trades on social media, chat groups or P2P boards
- Don't do it repeatedly, and don't buy to resell at a profit
- Only accept payment from an account in the other person's own name, never from a third party
- Don't release crypto until the yen has cleared, and remember e-money payments can be reversed
- Never lend, rent out or sell your bank or exchange account
- Record the date, amount, price and counterparty, and declare any gain
- Don't misstate your country of residence to a foreign platform or get around its geo-blocks
If something feels off, walk away and talk to your local police station. Getting money back after a fraud is slow and often doesn't work.
P2P crypto in Japan: FAQ
Is P2P crypto trading legal in Japan?
A one-off private trade, say selling some bitcoin to a friend, is generally outside the licensing rules. Advertising to strangers and trading repeatedly for profit is treated as an unregistered crypto exchange business under the Payment Services Act, with penalties of up to 3 years in prison and/or a ¥3 million fine. Police have made several arrests on exactly this basis.
Can I use Binance P2P in Japan?
Not if you live in Japan. Binance (global) ended service for Japan residents on 1 December 2023, and the FSA-registered Binance Japan has no yen P2P market. Binance Japan does let you buy crypto directly with a bank deposit or PayPay Money.
Does it matter that I am a foreign national?
No. The rules follow where you live and where you do business, not your passport. A foreign resident who advertises yen-for-USDT trades on social media in Japan faces the same law as anyone else, and offshore platforms exclude Japan residents regardless of nationality.
Can my Japanese bank account be frozen after a P2P sale?
Yes. If a buyer had a scam victim wire the yen to you, the victim's report can lead your bank to suspend the account under the Furikome Fraud Relief Act. The balance can be forfeited after a public notice period of at least 60 days unless you file a claim, so an honest seller can still lose access to salary and rent money.
How much more do you pay on P2P than on an exchange?
There is no published data series. In a single snapshot we took on 22 October 2026, offshore P2P ads selling USDT for yen were about 4.5–6% above the market rate for bank transfer and 12–18% above it for PayPay. Registered Japanese exchanges showed no such premium at the same moment.
Are P2P crypto gains taxed in Japan?
Yes. They are miscellaneous income, added to your salary and taxed at up to 55% including resident tax. P2P trades produce no annual statement from an exchange, so you need your own records. The planned 20% flat rate will only cover sales through registered exchanges, so P2P sales are expected to stay under the progressive rates.
Sources
- Payment Services Act (e-Gov, Japanese)
- FSA supervisory guidelines for crypto-asset exchange service providers (Japanese)
- FSA warnings to unregistered crypto operators
- National Police Agency, money-laundering risk assessment 2025 (Japanese)
- Nikkei, 15 January 2026: arrest for unregistered crypto exchange
- Binance: discontinuation of services for Japan residents
- Bybit: Service Changes for Japanese Residents
- CEX.IO: unsupported countries and territories
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