Japan’s Rakuten E-Commerce Company Mulls Over Bitcoin Acceptance

One of the world’s largest e-commerce companies is apparently considering accepting bitcoin.

That’s according to the company’s CEO, Mr. Hiroshi Mikitani, who has said that “sooner or later”, Rakuten will allow its customers to pay for goods with digital currency.

The quote (via CoinDesk.com):

[blockquote style=”2″]The Internet revolution is accelerating this year and I imagine that, sooner or later, Rakuten will start accepting money in the form of bitcoin (an internet virtual currency).[/blockquote]

The story originated from Chinese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, though unfortunately, further details as to when or if this might happen in the near future are not available.

What is known, however, is that Rakuten stands as a huge player in the world of online retail. With over 40 different businesses and 10,000 employees, they are certainly large enough to promote bitcoin even further.

Even more interesting is that fact that Rakuten even owns their own bank, which puts them in an interesting position should they decide to adopt digital currency like bitcoin.

The company has been on a roll in terms of expanding their business, having recently purchased Play.com and Buy.com in deals worth hundreds of millions. The company even purchased communication app Viber for $900 million earlier this year.

This year has thus far turned out to be very interesting. It seems as if larger and larger companies are beginning to get interested and getting involved in becoming a part of the digital currency world.

Let’s see how long it takes Rakuten to flip the switch.