Rakuten's customers can now use Bitcoin for shopping

Published at: March 1, 2021

Crypto-friendly Japanese retailer Rakuten is now enabling users of Rakuten Wallet, its crypto exchange subsidiary, to easily spend their cryptocurrency holdings in everyday transactions. 

According to an announcement published last Wednesday, users are now able to load up their Rakuten Pay accounts seamlessly with their wallet holdings of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ether (ETH). Rakuten Pay is a mobile payment app that is operational nationwide and supported at a wide range of large- and medium-scale retailers. 

Back in 2019, Rakuten had already enabled consumers to convert their Rakuten Group loyalty points to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Now, a deeper integration is being implemented, tying together Rakuten Wallet, Rakuten Cash (Rakuten's e-money service) and Rakuten Pay to support cryptocurrency spending at retailers such as McDonald's, Seiyu and FamilyMart.

There will be no conversion fees between fiat, e-money and crypto holdings, although there is a minimum spend amount of 1,000 yen (roughly $9.40) and a monthly upper limit of around 100,000 yen (roughly $940).

To make use of the integration, users will need to be a Rakuten member and have a trading account set up for Rakuten Wallet. The company is also offering a small bonus of Rakuten points to incentivize the new service.

Tags
Related Posts
PayPal to start letting US customers pay in Bitcoin at global merchants
Online payments giant PayPal will start to accept cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange at its millions of global merchants, the firm’s president and CEO revealed on Tuesday ahead of a formal announcement. News broke regarding PayPal’s rumored decision to accept cryptocurrencies early on March 30. Later in the day, the firm’s CEO, Dan Schulman, confirmed to Reuters that the rumors were true and that an official statement would be released imminently. The new system is expected to feature a crypto checkout service where users can pay for goods and services at approved vendors using their stored coins. The system …
Adoption / March 30, 2021
Cointelegraph announces the Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain 2021
Let’s get one thing out of the way: You will not agree with every selection on the Cointelegraph list of the Top 100 Notable People in Blockchain. In fact, you will almost certainly disagree, vehemently, with many of the people we’ve included on this year’s list. You will rage at the inclusion of [insert comedy villain here] and the exclusion of, say, Charles Hoskinson. Particularly if you are indeed Charles Hoskinson. You will seethe at the fact that Arthur Hayes is nowhere to be found. (We looked.) You'll eat your own... words because you once tweeted that John McAfee was …
Decentralization / Feb. 1, 2021
Bitcoin AUM falls 9.5% to record largest monthly pullback since July
The Bitcoin AUM market fell 9.5% to $48.7 billion in November, marking the year’s largest month-on-month pullback since July, according to a CryptoCompare report. On the other hand, altcoin-based crypto funds such as ETH saw their AUM rise 5.4% to $16.6 billion. While Bitcoin’s (BTC) position as a viable hedge against fiat inflation continues to attract investors, new data reflects a change in sentiment as Ethereum (ETH) and other cryptocurrency products pick up steam against falling Bitcoin assets under management (AUM). As shown in the above graph, the total AUM across all digital asset investment products has fallen 5.5% to …
Adoption / Nov. 28, 2021
Ethereum white paper predicted DeFi but missed NFTs: Vitalik Buterin
Rounding up the last decade, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revisited his predictions made over the years, showcasing a knack for being right about abstract ideas than on-production software development issues. Buterin started the Twitter thread by addressing his article dated Jul. 23, 2013 in which he highlighted Bitcoin's (BTC) key benefits — internationality and censorship resistance. Buterin foresaw Bitcoin’s potential in protecting the citizens’ buying power in countries such as Iran, Argentina, China and Africa. However, Buterin also noticed a rise in stablecoin adoption as he saw Argentinian businesses operating in Tether (USDT). He backed up his decade-old ideas around …
Adoption / Jan. 2, 2022
Payment services provider Shift4 acquires The Giving Block for $54 million
According to an investor presentation published Tuesday, U.S.-based payment solutions provider Shift4 announced its acquisition of The Giving Block in cash and stock for $54 million, plus a potential earnout of up to $246 million. The Giving Block is an online platform that allows over 1,300 nonprofit organizations and charities to accept crypto donations. As told by its annual report, the organization processed $69.64 million in crypto donations, an increase of 1,558% from 2020. Out of this amount, approximately $12.3 million came from donations by nonfungible tokens, or NFT, projects. Ether (ETH) became the most-popular crypto donated for the first …
Adoption / March 1, 2022