The East Japan Railway Company, commonly known as JR East, unveiled the use of crypto assets to pay for their services. The project will be undertaken in partnership with DeCurret, which is an FSA-regulated fiat-crypto exchange based in Japan.
It was Kazuhiro Tokita, the president of DeCurret, who unveiled the system that would enable Suica cardholders to top up using crypto assets. The Suica Card is a card used on the JR East’s Shinkansen and Metro systems.
Given that millions of Japanese use the JR East metro system to move across the city, if adopted, it would boost the already thriving adoption of cryptocurrencies in Japan. The move has been endorsed by many Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investors. This move will ease the process of having to exchange the crypto coins to the Japanese Yen to pay for the railway services.
DeCurret is yet to launch its trading platform!
It is, however, worth noting that the exchange, DeCurret, is yet to launch its crypto exchange trading platform. It has set the date of the launch on 16th April 2019. But even without a trading platform, DeCurret is a voice to reckon with in Japan since it has been able to meet all the requirements for crypto exchanges which were tightened after Coinbase was hacked earlier this year.
At Launch, the exchange is expected to support Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, XRP and Litecoin, though the list is expected to increase with time.
Japan has greatly adopted cryptocurrencies!
The adoption of cryptocurrencies by JR East is just one of the many projects that have integrated cryptocurrencies especially as a mode of payment.
Earlier on, Japanese financial institution Mizuho announced plans to launch its cryptocurrency, the J Coin, which would create an economy where consumers would use crypto to pay for goods and services.
We also saw Rakuten, which is a leading e-commerce company in Japan, get a bitcoin exchange with the aim of enabling its users to directly pay using cryptocurrencies.
Bit Camera has also embraced cryptocurrencies, and it accepts bitcoin payments in its stores.
