Cryptocurrency trading activities have become very popular among the younger generations, and countries like South Korea and Japan, have registered the biggest interest. According to Nikkei, the National Tax Agency of Japan (NTA) reported that 331 crypto investors registered more than $1 million dollars by trading virtual currencies.
Japanese Cryptocurrency Millionaires
The NTA announced that 331 crypto investors were able to earn more than $1 million dollars in profit, a very important sum for the tax authorities. This is a very important number for the government, because of the 549 individuals that declared non-working profits higher than a million dollars, 331 were related to virtual currency activities. 
This suggests that crypto traders are being responsible with the local authorities and are reporting the profits they make by trading in this volatile, but exiting, market.
At the same time, these are very good news for Japan. Its economy is stagnated since more than 20 years and virtual currencies are helping the country to prosper. According to an investigation conducted by Nomura’s bank, the increase in the price of Bitcoin in 2017 may have boosted the consumption in the Asian country.
“When some assets increase their value, it also means a higher spending from the consumer. This is known as wealth effect,” explained the team in charge of the investigation and conducted by Yoshuyuki Suimon. “We measured the wealth effect of unrealized gains in Bitcoin trading by Japanese investors since the beginning of he fiscal year 2017, and we estimate a potential boost in consumer spending of between 23.2 billion and 96 billion yen.”Â
Crypto trading activities and bitcoin investors with profits in 2017, boosted Japan’s GDP 0.3%. Moreover, it helped the tax agency to gather more funds for social and infrastructure spending. It will be important to follow how the tax authorities will tax virtual currencies in the future.
Additionally, the Japanese government announced back in 2017 that they could tax cryptocurrency investors up to 55%. This tax rate would apply just to the individuals that amounted more than 40 million yen ($365,000 dollars).
