Japan's Financial Services Agency research group discusses DeFi regulation and gatekeeper attribution.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency published minutes from the first meeting of its research group on digital and decentralized finance, held October 20, where members discussed how to regulate DEXs and DeFi and warned that Japan should act promptly to avoid becoming a “regulatory vacuum or a haven for regulatory arbitrage.” The group also examined stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and the risk that large redemptions of electronic payment instruments could trigger heavy selling of Japanese government bonds. Members debated who should assume the gatekeeper role traditionally held by financial institutions as DeFi disintermediates intermediation. The minutes signal that Japan is moving toward a formal framework for on-chain finance rather than leaving it outside existing rules. What to watch next is whether the FSA follows up with concrete proposals on DEX and stablecoin oversight, and how it assigns gatekeeping responsibility across DeFi protocols and traditional intermediaries.