Bitcoin Adoption Drastically Increases in Japan

Normally, after a contentious hard fork that leads to a chain split, a blockchain network struggles to sustain upward momentum until the market stabilizes and relaxes. However, the bitcoin market and industry used the hard fork as a trigger to establish momentum and continue to increase in value.

As a result, some of the largest bitcoin exchange markets including the U.S., South Korea, China and Japan experienced drastic increase in demand towards bitcoin, as the digital currency hit a new all-time high at $3,470 in global average.

The Japanese bitcoin industry in particular, demonstrated exponential growth rate in terms of merchant adoption and daily trading volumes of local exchanges. Apart from the Philippines and China, Japan is one of the few markets that has been considering bitcoin as a digital currency rather than as digital gold and a long-term investment.

Some of the largest retailers, hotels, airlines and department stores in Japan are accepting bitcoin as a payment method. More to that, in the upcoming months, hundreds of thousands of cafes, restaurants, bars, stores and merchants are expected to integrate and accept bitcoin through AirRegi, Japan’s leading Point-of-Sale service provider.

Most recently, Mauri, a mainstream retailer and department store in Japan, announced that it has begun to test bitcoin payments in its locations in Shinjuku with BitFlyer, the largest bitcoin exchange in the country. According to the Digital Currency Group, the bitcoin-focused investment firm that has stake in BitFlyer, the retail giant will test bitcoin transactions with a cap of 100,000 Japanese yen until October 31.

Despite the recent hard fork, which many analysts predicted it would lead to a decline in bitcoin adoption and downward trend for bitcoin price, leading economies in Japan are seeing drastic increase in mainstream adoption and perhaps most importantly, the market is demonstrating confidence towards bitcoin.