Rakuten Wallet Users Can Exchange Loyalty Points for XRP and Spend at Over 5 Million Merchants in Japan
Rakuten Wallet users can now directly purchase XRP using Rakuten Points, which can then be converted into Rakuten Cash for spending on the Rakuten Pay network.
44 million active users can conduct spot trading of XRP through the Rakuten Pay app, with over 3 trillion points (approximately $23 billion) now available to flow into XRP. XRP is the only newly listed asset integrated for payments.
In the Japanese consumption scenario, users convert points to XRP and inject Rakuten Cash for spending, with merchants receiving yen. XRP acts as a bridge asset, driving funds from the loyalty ecosystem to crypto holding and trading, benefiting both the Rakuten Group and XRP liquidity providers, while increasing the pressure of traditional points devaluation.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Rakuten established Rakuten Wallet after acquiring Everybody’s Bitcoin in 2018 and launched spot trading services in 2019, simultaneously introducing point redemption for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash, and has since continued to expand into the NFT market and blockchain lab projects.
In terms of capital strategy, Rakuten mobilizes a vast loyalty points pool (over 3 trillion) and e-commerce traffic, shifting user funds from consumption points to crypto asset holding and trading through Rakuten Wallet and Rakuten Pay. The strategy aims to enhance platform stickiness and explore Web3 payment gateways.
Similar to Rakuten's early Bitcoin payment integration and other Japanese consortiums' crypto layouts, it is currently transitioning from traditional loyalty programs to crypto payment infrastructure, covering 44 million users and 5 million merchants. Essentially, this represents a restructuring of the industry chain: the points-crypto-payment closed loop binds Rakuten's consumption data with XRP liquidity, reshaping the retail payment structure in Japan through user behavior, concentrating resources towards blockchain infrastructure and reducing reliance on traditional banking intermediaries.