After Japan recently advanced reforms in the regulation of crypto assets, the coverage of compliant trading for Shiba Inu Coin SHIB has continued to expand locally. However, as of September 7th, no Japanese regulatory authorities, exchanges, or asset management institutions have submitted or approved any applications related to SHIB ETF.
Japanese legislation has been advanced.
On July 15, the Japanese Parliament passed a bill related to the cryptocurrency market, and subsequently, on July 23, the government announced it as Law No. 64. The revised framework further incorporates the regulation of crypto assets into the Financial Products Trading Law, with a focus on information disclosure, trading activities, and the management of intermediary institutions.
This means that Japan is laying the legal foundation for regulated crypto fund products, but the law itself does not equate to the approval of ETF. Whether it's Bitcoin, SHIB, or other single crypto assets, none of them have automatically obtained the ETF qualification due to this legislation at this time.
SHIB has been added to the JVCEA whitelist.
In terms of transaction availability, SHIB has been included in the whitelist of the Japan Virtual and Crypto Asset Exchange Association JVCEA. This whitelist mainly covers crypto assets that have a relatively wide range of trading records among Japanese member institutions.
According to the standards of JVCEA, the relevant assets must be handled by at least 3 member companies and should have a trading history of at least 6 months, without any special restrictions attached. The list updated on September 1st shows that a total of 9 member companies provide SHIB transactions.
- Bitcoin is processed by 29 member companies.
- Ethereum is handled by 28 member companies.
- XRP is processed by 19 member companies.
Entering the whitelist can simplify some of the review processes for exchanges, but this is not the same as having the ETF qualification. Some in the community interpret this status as giving SHIB a first-mover advantage, but this is not an official statement from the Japanese Financial Services Agency or JVCEA.
Mercari Expand retail access
The Japanese e-commerce platform Mercari, under which Mercoin operates, has integrated SHIB and 11 other assets on June 8th. According to the company's announcement, eligible users can conduct transactions related to these assets through the Mercari application, with the assistance of Coincheck.
Mercoin indicates that as of March 2026, the number of accounts opened for its encryption services has exceeded 4 million. The company also stated that about 90% of the surveyed users had no prior experience in encrypted transactions. However, this data reflects the overall user structure of the platform and does not specifically refer to the SHIB buyers.
ETF Still awaiting detailed implementation rules
The report indicates that Japan's current legislative progress continues the previous direction of the Financial Services Agency to gradually incorporate crypto assets into the securities-like regulatory framework. Previous policy discussions focused more on whether Bitcoin and Ethereum might become among the first targets of such regulation.
The next more specific point of observation is how the detailed implementation rules after the regulatory amendments will be put into effect. The market's speculation about Japan possibly launching ETF in 2027 is still at the prediction stage. As for SHIB, compliance trading channels have expanded, but the prospects for ETF have not yet been confirmed.
Additional information:As of press time, SHIB is trading at $0.0000055, up 8% in the past 7 days and 17% in the past 30 days.
