Japanese retail giant Rakuten, the operator of Rakuten Wallet, a spot trading virtual asset platform and digital asset wallet has introduced a new service that will allow Rakuten customers to redeem their Rakuten Group loyalty points into cryptocurrencies.
The company made the announcement on Tuesday, December 24th, noting that the new loyalty redemption program “enables users to convert Rakuten Super Points from Rakuten Group’s loyalty points program to crypto assets through the Rakuten Wallet app.”
So far the Rakuten Wallet supports spot trading for three digital assets Bitcoin [BTC], Bitcoin Cash [BCH] and Ethereum [ETH].
Therefore, only these assets are supported for the redemption program. Furthermore, to participate, you will need to be a customer of Rakuten, already having Rakuten Super Points and have an account with Rakuten Wallet.
There are limits to trading the Super points for crypto:
“Rakuten Super Points can be exchanged from amounts of 100 Rakuten Super Points and above… There are [also] restrictions on the number of Rakuten Super Points that can be exchanged per transaction and per month.
– Number of points that can be converted in one transaction: 50,000 Rakuten Super Points for Diamond members, 30,000 Rakuten Super Points for other members.
– Number of points that can be converted per month: 500,000 Rakuten Super Points for Diamond members, 100,000 Rakuten Super Points for other members.”
Rakuten hopes to make it easier to onboard its users to the cryptocurrency space by allowing them to convert their loyalty points to crypto. Apparently, you cannot convert your cryptocurrency back to the loyalty points.
“Through the launch of the new service, Rakuten Wallet hopes to reduce the barriers of entry to crypto asset trading by providing an easy and more accessible way for new users to start, including novice users who are interested in crypto asset trading with no prior experience,” Rakuten noted in the Tuesday announcement.
“In addition, the service also increases the range of uses for Rakuten Super Points across the Rakuten Group’s ecosystem of services, making the Rakuten loyalty membership program even more attractive and convenient.”
Rakuten launched its subsidiary wallet service Rakuten Wallet in August this year. The service supports only spot trading of three assets. Rakuten is a leading financial services and retail business worth an estimated $14.5 billion according to the latest figures from Forbes.
