In the past few years, the cryptocurrency industry has witnessed massive adoption by major sectors worldwide, including banking, investment firms, automobile, and even e-commerce. However, the recent announcement of Bitcoin adoption by the Japanese e-commerce giant Mercari has made a significant statement, indicating that it will start accepting Bitcoin payments in June 2024.

E-commerce giant Mercari to start accepting Bitcoin

According to local Japanese media, Nikkei reported on January 5, 2024, that Mercari will begin accepting Bitcoin payments via its Tokyo-based crypto subsidiary, Melcoin. Melcoin will serve as an intermediary for crypto holders and vendors, converting Bitcoin into yen. In simple terms, buyers can purchase products with cryptocurrency, and vendors will receive yen as Melcoin facilitates the conversion.

Additionally, Mercari will not display any crypto prices on its website’s product listings. Instead, it will show prices in fiat yen. However, buyers will have the option to choose their preferred payment method, either in fiat or cryptocurrency.

In addition to cryptocurrency adoption in e-commerce, Japan recently experienced a massive earthquake. Some major cryptocurrency firms in the country are now building a crypto donation platform to aid victims of the Penisula earthquake.

Mercari, the e-commerce giant, also operates a Bitcoin trading services platform launched seven months ago. Recently, the platform surpassed the 1 million user mark in October 2023. Mercari stated that 80% of crypto users on their platform do not have any prior experience in crypto trading and investment.

Also Read: Japanese automobile giant Honda now accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum as payment methods

Rakuten and Mercari: Popular choices for Japanese Crypto investors

Moreover, both Mercari and Rakuten, another rapidly growing cryptocurrency trading platform, have become popular choices for Bitcoin and crypto investors. Rakuten, active in the crypto space for a while, operates Rakuten Wallet for crypto trading and integrates its loyalty points with crypto. 

Additionally, a recent survey revealed that among Japanese people who started trading cryptocurrency in late 2022, Mercari’s Bitcoin Trading app (24.7%) and Rakuten’s Rakuten Wallet (24.2%) were the top choices, surpassing the traditional crypto exchange leader bitFlyer (11.3%). This shift signals a significant impact on the country’s major crypto exchanges.

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