Rakuten's customers can now use Bitcoin for shopping

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.

Diagram showing Rakuten's new service integration. Source: Rakuten

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.