Japan's largest e-commerce conglomerate Rakuten has decided to integrate XRP across its ecosystem. The move opens a way for about 44 million users in Japan to easily use XRP for payments and transactions in daily life.

Coindesk, a blockchain media outlet, reported on April 14 local time that Rakuten added XRP as a payment option in its Rakuten Pay app. Rakuten Pay users will be able to pay with XRP at more than 5 million merchants across Japan.

The move brings XRP into Rakuten's payments and points ecosystem beyond its role as an investment asset. Spot trading in XRP will also be supported via Rakuten Wallet, and users can buy XRP with Rakuten Points and store their holdings in the wallet.

Tatsuya Kohorogi (타츠야 코호로기), a senior manager for ecosystem growth at Ripple, called the introduction "one of the most important XRP milestones". He said users can buy XRP directly with points and use it to top up Rakuten Cash for real payments.

The key is that Rakuten's large points system has been linked to XRP. Rakuten Points in circulation exceed 3 trillion points, estimated at about $23 billion. With those points now convertible to XRP, digital assets are directly connected to a large consumer rewards scheme.

The move is also meaningful for market expansion. Rakuten is a platform with high trust in Japan and has built an ecosystem spanning payments, commerce and finance. The inclusion of XRP is seen as an example showing a trend of digital assets expanding into real consumer infrastructure.

Rakuten has already been expanding cryptocurrency payments in stages. Since 2023, it has supported payments in bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and bitcoin cash (BCH), and in 2021 it disclosed a plan for its own token, "Rakuten Coin", for use in a points-based rewards system.

With the addition of XRP, Rakuten's ecosystem now has a complete usage path from buying and storage to payment. The market is watching how much actual users will use points for XRP purchases and payments, and whether such a structure will spread to other platforms.