Japanese E-commerce Giant Rakuten to Launch Its Crypto Exchange in June

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten will launch its own cryptocurrency exchange, dubbed Rakuten Wallet, this June, Cointelegraph Japan reports today, March 29.

As per the official announcement from Rakuten, the exchange will start accepting applications for opening accounts on April 15. Rakuten Wallet is set to go live in June.

According to Rakuten, its trading platform will allow users to trade digital assets via a smartphone application. Opening an account will be free of charge and customers’ funds will be stored in a cold wallet, the press release notes.

The company finally received regulatory approval from Japanese financial market regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) on March 25. The FSA granted Rakuten a license to operate a virtual currency exchange business in the country.  

At the same time, the e-commerce giant announced that its upcoming crypto exchange subsidiary was renamed to Rakuten Wallet.

The FSA recently greenlighted another local exchange, DeCurret, to start operating in April. As

Rakuten bought domestic crypto exchange Everybody’s Bitcoin for 265 million yen ($2.4 million at that time) in late August 2018. Simultaneously, the company hinted it was going to enter crypto exchange market.