Starting in June, users of Mercari, one of Japan’s biggest e-commerce platforms, will be able to pay for products using bitcoin. Users of the platform will also be able to use proceeds from sales to buy and sell bitcoin.
Mercari Set to Continue Displaying Yen Prices
One of Japan’s biggest online marketplaces, Mercari, has announced that soon its customers will be able to make payments using Bitcoin (BTC). Although Mercari is expected to continue displaying prices in yen, starting in June, its customers will be able to select the crypto asset when making payments.
According to a Nikkei report, Melcoin, a subsidiary of the online commerce giant, is set to process all payments made via BTC. This means vendors will only receive their payments in the form of yen. In addition, users will be able to buy and sell BTC using proceeds from online sales.
Mercari’s pivot to BTC payments comes almost a year after it launched a BTC trading service and more than three months after it reportedly hit the 1 million users milestone. The milestone was achieved as Mercari confirmed that some 80% of its crypto users had no previous crypto trading experience.
Despite being the new kid on the block, Mercari’s BTC trading service is already viewed more favorably by Japanese users than its rival Rakuten. As the findings of a study conducted by Mobile Marketing Data Labo show, 24.7% of the respondents who began using crypto in 2023 said they prefer using Mercari, compared to Rakuten’s 24.2%.
Meanwhile, some have described Mercari’s BTC trading service as a major blow to centralized crypto exchanges like Bitflyer, which has seen its share of the market drop to 11.3%.
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