Rakuten’s Journey Into Crypto Could See Amazon Follow

The Japanese-based online retailer that is constantly being compared to Amazon, Rakuten has opened registrations for its new Bitcoin and crypto exchange, the Rakuten Wallet, according to a report by Forbes published at the end of last week.

Crypto enthusiasts are bullish that this move by Rakuten’s to get involved with cryptocurrency will force other online retailer giants like Amazon and Alibaba to follow in its footsteps.

This is the kind of thought process that is shared by Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange by adjusted daily trading volume.

Everyone will be in crypto. https://t.co/EU9geHhQEL

— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) April 16, 2019

Adoption

One of the biggest long-term goals for cryptocurrencies is for mainstream adoption. But due to an uncertain regulatory environment, bank and government restrictions, this seems to have been put off.

Nevertheless, as Bitcoin and the crypto industry grows and matures, these problems are starting to get resolved.

New crypto and blockchain infrastructure is being built right now, and firms like Rakuten, see the potential cryptocurrencies have to disrupt payments in the future.

As stated by the Japanese ‘Amazon’ at the end of last year:

“The role of cryptocurrency-based payments in e-commerce, offline retail and in peer-to-peer payments will grow in the future.”

Price

Over the past few weeks, Bitcoin and a lot of altcoins have been surging in price.

The price of Bitcoin finally got over the $5,000 mark but on top of that, earlier this week, we saw the price surge over $5,500 too! The rest of the market seemed to follow it too but at the time of writing, most of the market is bleeding red.

Bitcoin is just under the $5,500 price range with a current price of $5,498 following a 1.23 percent loss in value over the past 24 hours.