By the middle of 2025’s third quarter, Shiba Inu has secured a huge regulatory win in one of the world’s most demanding crypto markets – Japan – entering the Green List, where only 29 other cryptos have made it. The credit received from the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA) makes this doggo meme coin one of the most reliable and important ones, bringing it closer to market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as other green-listed tokens like Litecoin, Polygon, and Hedera. This recognition signals the improving compliance and legitimacy of Shiba Inu’s native token, SHIB, in a jurisdiction with particularly tough crypto regulation, from strict compliance laws to unyielding user protections.
Such news might make you feel a deep pull toward Shiba Inu, and reasonably so. Not many crypto projects achieve the kind of appreciation seen here. But if you really consider choosing a crypto exchange platform, like Binance, where you can see the live Shiba Inu coin price, learn how to buy amounts of the token and store it in your e-wallet, then you need some extra background information before leaping. The following sections delve into Shiba Inu’s introduction on Japan’s Green List, from pros to considerations to the potential tax relief everyone’s talking about.
Shiba Inu’s new regulatory progress
SHIB is now part of the same team as market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum – which are legitimized and controlled by the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA) and the Payment Services Act (PSA), supervised by the Financial Services Agency (FSA). Its Green List integration, overseen by Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association (JVCEA), denotes the cryptocurrency has fulfilled a set of rigid standards:
- Decreased volatility risks. JVCEA also assesses tokens’ volatility risk to ensure safer alternatives can be unconditionally listed by exchanges, as the admission process becomes less strict once a token is listed. A place on this list = a fast pass for exchanges in Japan.
- Existence on several licensed exchanges. To be greenlit, the cryptos must already be listed on at least three licensed exchanges within the JVCEA. SHIB was already trading on four such destinations in Japan at the time of its inclusion.
- Compliance with regulations. Shiba Inu had to demonstrate compliance with stringent sustainability, transparency, and safety norms, including adherence to know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) standards.
- Operational history. The coin must’ve been registered by at least one JVCEA exchange member for at least half a year.
The benefits of SHIB’s landing on the list
For Shiba Inu, joining the JVCEA’s Green List means regulatory legitimacy, potential tax advantages, and easier and broader adoption within the country’s famously strict regulatory market, benefits that help its transition from a speculative coin based on memes, fun, and modern culture into a more credible investment vehicle. Some of the main benefits drawn include:
- Here’s likely the best advantage so far: faster exchange listings, since the assets that make it onto the list are “pre-approved,” allowing exchanges to list these tokens for trading without a laborious screening process. This makes it easier to engage with SHIB since it gains traction among exchanges and could boost its availability and trading volume over time.
- In Japan’s highly regulated market, becoming green-listed means that SHIB has met rigorous standards, a validation that helps foster trust and indicates to institutional and retail investors alike that they’ll invest in a compliant and reliable product if they decide on SHIB.
- More exchanges listing SHIB and potential tax breaks encouraging demand, this can boost SHIB’s liquidity and trading activity. Increased exposure in one of the world’s most sophisticated markets can also lead to more widespread global recognition.
Expected tax cut, advantageous for investors
Shiba Inu’s entry into the Green List is as much about official admission as it is about a potential tax relief for investors in Japan, a very welcome one since the high taxes imposed on crypto gains deter so many from engaging with the market. The crypto profits made by investors in Japan are considered miscellaneous income – in short, they’re treated like gambling gains. Top-earning individuals may need to pay as much as 55% of their earnings, a tax that ranks among the sharpest worldwide and pushes investors to less taxing jurisdictions. In other countries, however, the law treats crypto earnings as capital gains. Recently, U.S. senators Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis urged the Treasury to amend the cryptocurrency tax law, which they say strains businesses.
Japan’s FSA recognized this burden and proposed a 35% tax cut, which would make SHIB-based earnings taxable at only 20% if the proposal passes. The agency also plans to designate 105 qualifying cryptocurrencies, among them Green List tokens, as official financial instruments.
The latest news translates into greater purchasing power among investors in Japan, an achievement that could unlock both institutional and retail capital inflows and improve liquidity – possibly the price, too, but it’s too soon to guess right now.
Does it mean you should invest?
The news may be extremely encouraging, and if you’ve been thinking about entering the crypto space, you might now be justifiably drawn to Shiba Inu. Yes, this is a major victory for SHIB and the broader Shibarium community, a recognition many projects never get to achieve. But it’s just as important to remember that all cryptos remain volatile, and investing in them still exposes you to meaningful risk. Because of this, you should do a good assessment of your risk tolerance, your investment horizon, and how much of your portfolio you’re comfortable allocating to such an unpredictable market.
There will always be waves of news across the internet – positive, neutral, negative – but headlines alone don’t determine a crypto’s long-term performance. Many other factors influence price movements, like market liquidity, macroeconomic conditions, global regulatory changes, Bitcoin’s price, network activity, tech upgrades, whale activity, and so on. Any of these can send a single cryptocurrency, or even the entire market, to the moon or to the ground within moments. Keeping these realities in mind helps ensure that your decisions are guided not only by exciting progress like SHIB’s Green List inclusion, but also by a thorough understanding of the risks and forces shaping the crypto landscape.