Cryptocurrency adoption in Japan has taken a significant leap forward as Rakuten Wallet officially rolls out XRP spot trading and payment functionalities. Starting today, users of Rakuten Wallet in Japan can convert their Rakuten loyalty points into XRP, spot trade the asset in-app, or spend it as a payment method across more than 5 million merchant locations nationwide.
Ripple's development arm, RippleX, has noted that the integration is one of the largest retail deployments of XRP to date. XRP will be able to gain exposure to an enormous consumer base of 44 million active Rakuten Pay users. The broader Rakuten ecosystem currently has over 3 trillion loyalty points in circulation, equating to a staggering $23 billion in points that are now fully redeemable for XRP. Users can convert these points, load them into their digital wallets, and perform real-world retail payments in physical stores via QR codes.
The much-anticipated listing of XRP on the platform was previously postponed, but it has now gone live smoothly. Rakuten Wallet is currently running a promotional campaign in order to incentivize early adopters. Users who purchase 30,000 yen or more of the cryptocurrency will automatically be rewarded with 500 yen worth of XRP. Meanwhile, users who purchase 100,000 yen or more will receive an upgraded reward of 1,500 yen worth of XRP. Currently, the new integration is live on mobile as an "Android Early Release". However, Rakuten Wallet has officially confirmed that an iOS version of the app update is planned for release soon.
The update comes as XRP spot ETFs recorded $81.63 million in April inflows, their strongest month of 2026. On April 28, they recorded $2.2018 million in net inflows, driven entirely by the Canary XRP ETF. Cumulative net inflows reached $1.293 billion, while total net assets across XRP spot ETFs stood at $1.053 billion, equal to around 1.23% of XRP's market capitalization. April has also become the strongest month for XRP ETFs in 2026, with about $81.63 million in monthly inflows. That has fueled talk of a possible decoupling from Bitcoin and Ethereum, although XRP's price has not yet fully reflected the ETF demand. Ripple's wider ecosystem is also expanding. OKX recently added Ripple USD, or RLUSD, across more than 280 spot trading pairs, including RLUSD/XRP, while supporting deposits and withdrawals through the XRP Ledger.
