Japanese E-commerce Giant Rakuten Launches NFT Marketplace

Key Insights

• Rakuten Group has announced the launch of its NFT marketplace.
• With this move, the Japanese e-commerce giant aims to capitalize on the growing NFT adoption in Japan
• The firm intends to provide peer-to-peer listing and sales in 2023 or later.  

Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten announced the launch of its nonfungible token (NFT) trading platform, Rakuten NFT.

Rakuten To Capitalize on Growing NFT Adoption

Rakuten Group Inc, the Japanese firm behind the popular online shopping platform Rakuten, on Friday announced that it had launched its NFT marketplace. 

Rakuten’s NFT marketplace will let users purchase NFTs, as well as peer-to-peer buying and selling of NFTs. The marketplace will offer NFTs in various areas such as sports and entertainment, including music and anime, a company press release revealed. 

Furthermore, the marketplace will also feature a unique, one-stop platform that enables IP holders to build their website for issuing and selling NFTs. The firm intends to provide peer-to-peer listing and sales in 2023 or later.  

That said, the firm had initially revealed its plans to launch a proprietary NFT marketplace in 2021 amid the growing popularity of nonfungible tokens. 

Rakuten’s first NFT drop occurred on February 25 and included digital assets from an anime called Ultraman and the horse-racing-themed comic Kurogane Hiroshi G1 Gekitoshi (2010 Series). 

Rakuten is a Japanese e-commerce store that sells goods and services across various sectors like books, fintech, cosmetics, digital content, and more. As per reports, the firm earned over 26.9 trillion yen, equivalent to $232.7 billion in the fiscal year of 2021. 

NFT Boom in Japan

Over the last year, the global NFT space saw a significant boom in popularity and adoption. After a record rise in trade volumes, major players across various sectors began dealing in NFTs. That said, of late, celebrities and sportspersons have been keen on jumping on the NFT bandwagon too. The most recent highlight in the NFT space was the speculation around Elon Musk buying the Bored Ape NFT. 

With the NFT space growing, more and more marketplaces are coming up as interest in NFTs has increased in Japan. Notably, in March last year, a Japanese crypto exchange, Coincheck debuted a dedicated NFT marketplace, while in July, early cryptocurrency evangelist Mai Fujimoto, also known as ‘Miss Bitcoin,’ teamed up with Enjin to create an NFT charity program in Japan.