XRP gains 44M users via Rakuten payments

TLDR

Rakuten is integrating XRP into its payments and loyalty stack so roughly 44 million Japanese users can buy, hold and spend the token across millions of merchants.

1. Rakuten Pay and Rakuten Wallet now let 44 million users convert Rakuten Points into XRP and spend it at over 5 million stores across Japan.
2. Tying XRP into one of Japans largest loyalty programs, with about 3 trillion points (around 23 billion dollars) in circulation, creates a powerful retail on ramp and adoption story.
3. The real impact depends on how many users actually choose XRP for payments, how much volume flows through it, and how it competes with improving traditional payment rails.

Deep Dive

1. What Rakuten Is Enabling

Rakuten Wallet has listed XRP and connected it to the Rakuten Pay app, so users can buy XRP, hold it in Rakuten Wallet, and spend it via Rakuten Pay in stores and online across Japan. Reports say about 44 million Rakuten Pay users can now pay with XRP at more than 5 million merchant locations nationwide, using the same QR code and checkout flows they already know.

Critically, users can convert Rakuten Points into XRP and then into Rakuten Cash, creating a loop where loyalty points become crypto and then everyday spend at merchants, according to detailed coverage of the rollout in Japans market.

2. Why This Matters For XRP Demand

Rakutens program reportedly has over 3 trillion Rakuten Points outstanding, worth roughly 23 billion dollars, which can now be converted into XRP and spent through the same ecosystem. That effectively turns one of Japans biggest rewards systems into a large retail on ramp for XRP, as highlighted by multiple market reports on the integration.

Japan is already one of XRPs strongest markets, with significant exchange listings, ETF products and institutional flows. Analysts note that Rakutens move adds a real world usage vector, complementing institutional demand from spot XRP ETFs and whale accumulation that has been reported around the same time.

3. Risks And What To Watch Next

Access does not guarantee usage. Users still have to opt in to converting their points to XRP and paying with it instead of yen or existing card methods, and Rakuten has not yet disclosed actual XRP payment volumes.

At the same time, traditional rails are modernizing. Upgrades to systems like FedNow and Swift, covered in recent analyses of payments competition, aim to reduce settlement times and costs, which could narrow XRPs perceived advantage as a payments asset over time.

On the market side, XRP has seen short term rallies around the news, but technical commentary still describes it as trading within a broader downtrend channel, with key support and resistance levels that traders are watching closely.

Conclusion

Rakutens move plugs XRP into a huge Japanese consumer network, turning loyalty points into a direct path to using crypto in daily life. For XRP holders and observers, the key is whether this potential audience translates into meaningful payment volume and sustained demand, especially as traditional payment systems also get faster and cheaper.