Japanese Electronic Communication Giant Rakuten Plans To Purchase Local Bitcoin Exchange

Rakuten, a major Japanese e-commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo and founded in 1997 by Hiroshi Mikitani, announced plans to acquire a local Bitcoin exchange.

Rakuten emphasized that the purchase is due to the requirements of a growing number of customers for the exchange of foreign currency in its securities market.

Therefore on August 31, the firm concluded an agreement to transfer 100 percent of the stock exchange called Everybody’s Bitcoin. The purchase cost the company e-commerce $ 2.4 million.

Founded in March 2017, Everybody’s Bitcoin is one of Japan’s unlicensed crypto banks, which were tested by the Japanese Financial Services Agency after hacking Coincheck in January. Nevertheless, with the planned acquisition, Rakuten seeks to help the exchange in improving its internal systems.

Rakuten will improve the internal exchange systems with a whole satisfaction of the regulator’s requirements for obtaining a license.

It follows from the previous report that Rakuten also plans to launch its own cryptocurrency in order to expand its global user base. The e-commerce company first began accepting Bitcoin payments in 2015, when it integrated its site into the Bitcoin Bitnet payment processor.