Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten on Monday officially announced the launch of crypto trading services on its digital asset exchange, Rakuten Wallet.
The launch comes amid the initiation of the registration process by the crypto exchange in April.
According to the official announcement, the Japanese crypto exchange will initially support spot trading with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. The platform has been launched only on mobile platforms and, for the time being, is only available on Android devices. The company, however, assured that the iOS version of Rakuten Wallet is under development and will hit the market as soon as September 2019.
Attention to security
The Japanese internet giant also detailed that, for security reasons, the crypto platform will store the clients’ funds and the exchange’s funds separately. In addition, the exchange will keep the stored clients’ funds in cold wallets and manage private-keys with multisignature wallet to avoid threats.
The platform introduced a two-step verification process for login and also for withdrawal and deposit of funds.
In May, Rakuten Wallet also partnered with blockchain security company CipherTrace to integrate anti-money laundering solutions on its crypto exchange.
Rakuten Wallet, previously known as Everybody’s Bitcoin, was acquired by the e-commerce giant in 2018 for 265 million yen (around $2.4 million). Though the crypto exchange was previously served notice for management lapses, under Rakuten’s control, it has managed to gain an operating license from the country’s regulatory body.
– Rakuten Wallet might be one of the biggest things at the moment in the Japan crypto scene. It’s now open for web registration, only a month after it acquired a crypto license from the FSA (cont.
— Dovey “Rug The Fiat” Wan🪐🦖 (@DoveyWan) April 23, 2019
The company also formed a payments subsidiary earlier this year to oversee its crypto exchange business.
Along with Rakuten, many other major players in Japan are also diving into the crypto trading industry. Yahoo-backed Taotao also received approval from Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) and launched a crypto trading platform earlier this year.
