Japan's largest e-commerce marketplace, Mercari, has officially added Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) to its platform, giving its 23 million users the ability to buy the assets directly with proceeds from selling second-hand items or accumulated bonus points. The technical integration is powered by the exchange Coincheck through its new Crypto as a Service (CaaS) API.
The move taps into an already crypto-curious user base: more than 4 million crypto accounts have been opened inside Mercari, with 85% of them created by people with no prior trading experience. SHIB’s extremely low per-unit price yet high market capitalization of $2.73 billion makes it ideal for small-scale transactions starting from just 1 yen, perfectly matching the behavior of new retail investors who treat the process as a form of digital collecting.
Observers note that Japanese users often buy SHIB or DOGE in tiny portions, likening the experience to caring for a virtual pet like Tamagotchi or Pokémon, where they accumulate coins and monitor balances by “feeding” them with money from sold household items. The Shiba Inu dog breed, already a national treasure in Japan, adds a cultural emotional trigger.
Behind the launch lies a significant regulatory shift. Japan’s self-regulatory crypto exchange association, JVCEA, added Shiba Inu to its official Green List, placing the meme coin on the same reliability tier as Bitcoin and Ethereum. This classification automatically bypassed lengthy individual approval by Japan’s financial regulator, the FSA, enabling instant trading via API. Crucially, the tax on profits from Green List coins was reduced from a progressive 55% to a fixed 20%, making legal micro‑transactions economically attractive for ordinary citizens.
The Mercari integration is not an isolated event. Earlier, e-commerce conglomerate Rakuten enabled similar SHIB support through its Rakuten Wallet platform, signaling a broader expansion of meme coins into mainstream Japanese shopping ecosystems.
