According to official sources, Line users from Japan and the United States will not be able to use instant messages service’s own cryptocurrency due to licensing issues. Despite plans of the Line Corporation to issue its own cryptocurrency in international markets, this new circumstance will definitely slow the momentum of this cryptocurrency.
“Over the last seven years, LINE was able to grow into a global service because of our users, and now with LINK, we wanted to build a user-friendly reward system that gives back to our users,” said LINE CEO Takeshi Idezawa. “With LINK, we would like to continue developing as a user participation-based platform, one that rewards, and shares added value through the introduction of easy-to-use dApps for people’s daily lives.”
It is important to note that this currency-project called LINK, would not be issued through an ICO, but as a reward to its users after performing various actions in its messaging app, in addition to being available for trading in BitBox, an exchange also owned by the Line Corporation.
“In contrast to the other digital tokens and cryptocurrency projects, LINK will not perform an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), but a reward system that will grant LINK to users as compensation for using certain LINE ecosystem services. (…) This LINK can be used as a payment or reward within the dApp services that we will launch soon, and for other things such as content, trade, games and exchanges within the LINE ecosystem”
commented the company’s official spokesperson.
For the moment, BitBox is not licensed by the Japanese the Financial Services Commission (FSA). Even though Line is a Japanese company with more than 75 million users in the country, the fact that its customers cannot use LINK could be a serious blow to the utility of this token. However, the company confirmed that Japanese residents will have another LINK alternative called Link Point, which can be exchanged for LINK tokens once BitBox obtains the necessary licenses. For Japanese residents, Link Point will be received as a reward for activities carried out in the dApps. Japanese users can use Link Point within the dApp or change.
By Samuel Larreal
