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Huge Global E-Commerce Company Rakuten Rolls Out Bitcoin Acceptance

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:43 PM
Joel Dalais
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:43 PM

Rakuten  is one of the largest global e-commerce companies in the world. They have just announced that they are implementing Bitnet ’s digital commerce platform to enable its sites to accept bitcoin.

You have a huge range of shopping options from Rakuten. Fashion, Kids, Baby & Maternity, toys, hobbies and games, electronics, beauty and health, home and garden, sports, outdoors and cars, and more.

Currently the ability for customers to purchase their items and pay with bitcoin is only live on the Rakuten’s US site, Rakuten.com . However, it shall soon be followed by rollouts worldwide starting with Rakuten.de in Germany and Rakuten.at in Austria.

Rakuten’s market cap lists as $17.65 bn (as of May, 2014 ), and currently have over 14,000 employees and business interests all over the world. It has become one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world to accept bitcoin.

Enabling bitcoin payments allows Rakuten customers enhanced security, privacy and convenience. And comparatively, instead of opening a new Rakuten for a specific country, bitcoin grants Rakuten access to new customers the world over.

 

Bitnet  has been developed by a team of senior payment industry veterans, with backgrounds from Visa and CyberSource. Bitnet’s engineering, product, and business development team helped build and manage the world’s largest payment gateway, CyberSource (NASDAQ: CYBS), which was sold to the world’s largest payment network, Visa (NYSE: V), for $2 billion in 2010.

The company (Bitnet) recently announced that it had raised $14.5 million in a Series A round of funding last October, which included investment by Rakuten.

Bitnet’s platform focuses on addressing the complex payment processing needs of enterprise-scale merchants looking to accept digital currencies like bitcoin. They offer all the benefits of bitcoin, with transactions fees starting from under 1% and dropping with volume.

One of the most notable things is that the service also provides bitcoin refunds. It is most likely that the refunds will be valued in USD, so people trying to game them will not have any luck.