If you have lived in Japan for a while, you already have the apps: LINE for messages, PayPay at the register, Mercari for selling the furniture you no longer need, maybe a Rakuten account full of points. Several of them now double as crypto on-ramps. That sounds like the app itself is selling you bitcoin, but it isn't. Under the Payment Services Act, only crypto-asset exchange service providers registered with the Financial Services Agency (FSA) can broker crypto trades for Japan residents. The app is the storefront; a registered exchange does the trade and holds the coins.
Knowing which exchange is behind which app answers the practical questions fast: who holds your coins, where the cost is hidden, which company to call if something breaks, and what happens if the service shuts down. That last one is not hypothetical. LINE's exchange closed in 2026, and users who did nothing got yen instead of crypto. This page walks through each integration, then compares buying inside an app with using an exchange account directly. Full service reviews live on separate pages, linked as we go.
Which Japanese apps let you buy crypto?
Here is the short version. Registration numbers were checked against the FSA's register of crypto-asset exchange service providers.
| App | Registered operator behind it | What you pay with | Status and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| LINE | LINE Xenesis (LINE BITMAX) | — | Closed June 1, 2026. No account transfer; refunds in yen |
| PayPay | Binance Japan (Kanto LFB No. 00031) | PayPay Money, PayPay Points | From ¥1,000; sale proceeds back to PayPay Money |
| Rakuten | Rakuten Wallet (No. 00015) | Rakuten Points, Rakuten Bank | 1 point = ¥1, from 100 points; cash out to Rakuten Cash |
| Mercari | Mercoin (No. 00030); some coins via Coincheck (No. 00014) | Mercari sales balance, Mercari points | From ¥1; 16 coins; auto-invest of free points |
| au PAY | Self-custody wallet; yen purchases via Coincheck | Ponta points (max 300 a month) | WBTC, ETH and JPYC; top up au PAY balance |
| SBI | SBI VC Trade (No. 00011) | Bank quick deposit, Orico and Aplus points | Also handles USDC and a yen stablecoin |
| docomo | — | No d POINT-to-crypto route found | scramberry WALLET ended September 2025 |
What happened to LINE crypto and LINE BITMAX?
LINE BITMAX was the crypto exchange of LINE Xenesis, part of LY Corporation (the company formed from LINE and Yahoo Japan). On March 3, 2026 it announced it would close, stopped new sign-ups the same day and waived its fees. Buying and incoming crypto transfers stopped on April 6, yen deposits on May 11, and the service ended at noon on June 1, 2026. The company cited market changes, tougher competition and a reallocation of group resources.
The unusual part is what happened to customer coins. When DMM Bitcoin wound down after its 2024 hack, its accounts moved wholesale to SBI VC Trade. LINE BITMAX named no successor. Whatever crypto users had not sent elsewhere by the deadline was sold by the operator at what it called a fair market price, and the yen went to each user's registered bank account. Where a refund could not be paid, the money was deposited with the Legal Affairs Bureau, the official escrow route in Japan. If you were caught by this, note that a forced sale can still be a taxable disposal: compare the yen you received with what you paid and check the transaction history LINE Xenesis issued before you file for 2026.
LINE's remaining Web3 features
LINE has not left blockchain entirely. In January 2025, LINE NEXT and the Kaia Foundation launched Mini Dapps and a Dapp Portal inside LINE Messenger. Each user gets an MPC walletA wallet whose private key is split into pieces held by different parties, so no single device holds the whole key and users never handle it directly. linked to their LINE account, so small games and apps run without a separate download. Kaia counted roughly 35 million cumulative users in the first month, and LINE reported fast growth in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Korea. Kaia itself is the chain created when LINE's Finschia merged with Kakao's Klaytn. None of this is a way to buy crypto with yen, though. On the NFT side, LINE NFT closed in January 2024, and LY Corporation said its successor DOSI would end all services on December 30, 2025, after leaving the app stores in June 2025.
"Join our LINE group and buy crypto"
Investment-group scams run through LINE chats and open chats, and they target foreign residents too. With LINE BITMAX gone, there is no LINE-group exchange to deal with at all, and no registered exchange will ever ask you to send money to an individual's bank account. See crypto scams in Japan for the common scripts and where to report them.
Buying crypto with PayPay through Binance Japan
PayPay, the QR-payment app most shops in Japan accept, announced in October 2025 that it had taken a 40% stake in Binance Japan. From November 21, 2025, Binance Japan customers could pay for purchases on its dealer deskDealer desk (販売所, hanbaijo): the exchange sells to you at its own quoted price. Easy to use, but the buy-sell gap is the hidden cost. with PayPay Money or PayPay Points, and send sale proceeds back to PayPay Money. According to PayPay, the minimum is ¥1,000 and the cap is ¥1 million per 24 hours and ¥2 million per 30 days. PayPay Money Lite, the balance type you get before completing PayPay's identity check, does not qualify, and neither do limited-time points.
For foreign residents the main hurdle is identity verification: you need it on both Binance Japan and PayPay. Have your residence card (zairyu card) or My Number card ready and check which documents each app accepts at the time you sign up. Since April 9, 2026 you can also move PayPay Money into and out of Binance Japan independently of a trade, for ¥110 each way, and pre-deposited funds can be used on the order bookOrder book (取引所, torihikijo): users trade with each other at prices they set. Fees are low, but you place market or limit orders yourself. as well. That matters if you want to avoid dealer spreads on larger amounts.
Two look-alikes are worth separating. PayPay's in-app points investing has a bitcoin-linked course, but your points simply move with the bitcoin price: no actual bitcoin is held. And from September 30, 2026, overseas Binance Pay users can pay at PayPay merchants across Japan, with shops receiving yen. That is an inbound-tourism feature; Japan residents and Binance Japan users are excluded. Step-by-step setup is in our PayPay crypto guide, and the exchange itself is covered in the Binance Japan review.
Rakuten crypto: points in, Rakuten Cash out
Rakuten's crypto arm is Rakuten Wallet, registered with the FSA as Kanto LFB No. 00015. Since December 2019 you can convert Rakuten Points into crypto at 1 point = ¥1, starting from 100 points. If your points pile up faster than you can spend them, that is a zero-cash way to own a little bitcoin. The conversion only goes one way, though: crypto cannot be turned back into points.
On the way out, Rakuten Wallet lets you sell crypto straight into Rakuten Cash, the stored-value balance used by Rakuten Pay. There is no fee for that charge, but you still pay the spread when you sell. The FSA register (as of September 30, 2026) lists 14 coins for Rakuten Wallet, including BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL and DOGE. Its official overview page, as archived in 2025, listed free real-time deposits from a linked Rakuten Bank account and a ¥300 yen withdrawal fee, waived for withdrawals to Rakuten Cash. Points rates across programmes are compared in buying crypto with points, and the service gets a full write-up in the Rakuten Wallet review.
Mercari bitcoin: how Mercoin works
Mercari is the biggest crypto on-ramp in Japan by a wide margin. Its subsidiary Mercoin started offering bitcoin in March 2023 and passed 4 million cumulative accounts by the end of March 2026. In a Mercoin survey, about 90% of its users had never traded crypto before. For context, Mercoin cited about 14 million crypto accounts nationwide, so a large share of Japan's newcomers came through a flea-market app.
The mechanics are simple. You buy from ¥1 using your Mercari sales balance (held as Merpay balance) or points, and sale proceeds go back to the same balance, so no bank transfer is involved. There is no trading commission; the spreadThe gap between the price you can buy at and the price you can sell at. On dealer desks it can be several percent. is built into the price. Mercoin handles BTC, ETH and XRP itself. On June 8, 2026 it added 12 coins listed by Coincheck, including DOGE, SHIB, LINK and PEPE, and SOL followed on August 31, for 16 in total. For the Coincheck coins, Mercoin brokers the trade and Coincheck is the counterparty, so you apply for a linked account inside the Mercari app and Coincheck screens you. Non-residents, under-18s, people aged 75 or older, and anyone who already has a Coincheck account cannot apply.
Since September 15, 2026, a points-investing feature automatically puts newly granted free Mercari points into BTC or ETH. In October, Mercoin said it had started considering ZPG, Coincheck's gold-linked token. The full picture, including what Mercoin does not offer, is in the Mercoin review.
au PAY's αU wallet: Ponta points into a self-custody wallet
On September 30, 2026, KDDI built a crypto wallet called αU wallet into the au PAY app, together with au Coincheck Digital Assets (its joint venture with Coincheck) and the wallet provider HashPort. It is open to au PAY users who have completed identity verification. Unlike the other integrations, it is non-custodialYou hold the private keys yourself instead of leaving coins with an exchange. More control, but no one can recover lost keys for you.: the coins sit in a wallet you control, not in an exchange account.
You can convert up to 300 Ponta points a month into WBTC (a token that tracks bitcoin), ETH or the yen stablecoin JPYC without an exchange account. Buying WBTC or ETH with yen hands you over to the Coincheck app and requires a Coincheck account. Holdings can be topped up into your au PAY balance and spent at au PAY merchants. KDDI plans staking for winter 2026, and the old standalone αU wallet app closes on October 30, 2026. Since you hold the keys, back up your recovery method carefully; there is no exchange support desk that can restore a lost wallet.
SBI and docomo: one group all-in, one stepping back
SBI's crypto business runs through SBI VC Trade (No. 00011), which absorbed BITPOINT Japan on April 1, 2026 and passed 2 million accounts across both brands in July. bitbank became a wholly owned SBI subsidiary on October 1, 2026. You can convert Orico points (1,200 points for ¥1,000 of BTC, ETH or XRP) and Aplus points, and the SBI VISA crypto card pays rewards in crypto. SBI VC Trade is also one of only two firms registered to deal in stablecoins, handling USDC, RLUSD and the trust-type yen coin JPYSC; see our guide to JPYC and yen stablecoins. Card options are compared in crypto cards in Japan.
NTT docomo has gone the other way. Its consumer wallet, scramberry WALLET, ended in September 2025, and press reports say NTT Digital was folded into NTT Docomo Global in February 2026 with a corporate focus. We found no official way to convert d POINT into crypto.
App purchase vs exchange account: what changes?
Buying inside an app is quick and starts at tiny amounts. Compared with opening an exchange account and trading there, three things change: cost, custody and what you can do with the coins afterwards.
Cost. Almost every app route is a dealer-desk trade. "No fee" is technically true, but the spread does the charging, and few operators publish it. Coincheck does: 0.1–5.0% against its reference price, wider in volatile markets, and that is the spread in Mercari's Coincheck-linked prices too. On ¥5,000 it hardly matters. On ¥500,000 a round trip can cost thousands of yen more than an order-book trade. Run your own numbers on our fee comparison.
Custody. Coins bought via Mercoin, Rakuten Wallet, Binance Japan or SBI VC Trade are held by that registered exchange, which must keep customer assets segregated from its own. The αU wallet is self-custody, so the risk of losing access is yours. LINE BITMAX also shows the other custody risk: a registered exchange can close, and on its timeline.
Moving coins out. Whether you can withdraw to another exchange or your own wallet depends on the service and the coin. Where you can, Japan's Travel RuleA rule requiring exchanges to pass sender and recipient details along with crypto transfers. In force in Japan since June 2023. applies, which usually means registering the destination and declaring whose wallet it is. Our wallet guide covers what exchanges will and won't send to.
Tax. No difference. Selling, swapping or spending crypto is a taxable event, and gains are generally miscellaneous incomeZatsu shotoku (雑所得): the catch-all income category. It is added to your salary and taxed at progressive rates.. Charging au PAY or Rakuten Cash from crypto works like selling it. The details are in our Japan crypto tax guide.
Notes for expats, visitors and anyone leaving Japan
Every route on this page assumes you live in Japan. The exchanges behind them are bound by Japan's anti-money-laundering rules, so you will be asked for a Japanese address and photo ID, and since January 2026 for a tax-residence self-certification, which can mean giving your foreign tax ID number. If you are on a short-term visitor status, you will not get through these checks. Our crypto guide for foreigners covers visa types and documents in detail.
Visitors have two realistic options: keep using the regulated service from their home country, or use an international platform that accepts foreign cards. CEX.IO is one such platform. It is registered with FinCEN as a money services business in the US, licensed as a money transmitter in many US states and registered with the UK FCA as a cryptoasset business. It is not registered with Japan's FSA, does not support yen, and lists Japan among its unsupported countries, so it is something for visitors with foreign cards, not for Japan residents.
Leaving Japan takes some planning. Mercari's Coincheck-linked coins are explicitly closed to non-residents, and other services may restrict accounts once you move abroad. Decide before you go whether to sell, transfer to a wallet you control, or keep an account you can still legally use, and keep your Japanese transaction records for your last tax return. Timing and residency questions are covered in moving to or leaving Japan with crypto.
If you are choosing between apps today: use Mercoin if you have a Mercari balance, Rakuten Wallet for Rakuten Points, PayPay with Binance Japan if you live in the PayPay ecosystem, and αU wallet if you want Ponta points in a wallet you control. Once amounts grow, compare the FSA-registered exchanges for an order-book account.
Crypto in Japanese apps: FAQ
Can I still buy crypto on LINE in Japan?
No. LINE BITMAX, the exchange run by LY Corporation's subsidiary LINE Xenesis, closed on June 1, 2026. Accounts were not moved to another exchange: leftover crypto was sold and refunded in yen to each user's bank account. LINE still hosts Kaia-based Mini Dapps, but those are not a yen on-ramp.
Can foreigners use Mercari to buy bitcoin?
If you live in Japan and pass Mercari's identity checks, you can buy from ¥1 with your Mercari sales balance or points. The Coincheck-linked coins have extra limits: non-residents, under-18s and people aged 75 or over cannot apply, and neither can existing Coincheck customers.
Does PayPay sell bitcoin directly?
No. PayPay acts as the payment rail; the trade happens on Binance Japan, an FSA-registered exchange in which PayPay holds 40%. You need verified accounts on both, purchases start at ¥1,000, and only PayPay Money and PayPay Points work, not PayPay Money Lite.
Can tourists buy crypto with Japanese apps?
Not really. These apps sit on top of domestic exchanges that require Japanese residency and identity verification. Visitors usually keep using the service from their home country. Overseas Binance Pay users can, however, pay at PayPay merchants in Japan since September 30, 2026.
Are app purchases cheaper than using an exchange?
Usually not. App purchases are almost always dealer-style trades with no visible commission, but the spread between buy and sell prices is the real cost. Coincheck, which also prices Mercari's linked coins, publishes a dealer spread of 0.1–5.0%. Order-book trading on an exchange is generally cheaper for larger amounts.
Do I pay tax on crypto bought with points?
Yes, under the same rules as any other crypto. When you sell, swap or spend it, the gain is generally taxed as miscellaneous income at progressive rates of up to 55% including resident tax. Keep the annual transaction report each app provides.
Sources
- LY Corporation: LINE BITMAX service termination (Japanese)
- PayPay: PayPay Money for Binance Japan purchases (Japanese)
- Mercoin: Coincheck-listed coins in the Mercari app, June 8, 2026 (Japanese)
- Mercoin newsroom: SOL listing and points investing (Japanese)
- LY Corporation: DOSI service update
- Impress Watch: αU wallet in the au PAY app, September 30, 2026 (Japanese)
- FSA: register of crypto-asset exchange service providers (Japanese)
- CEX.IO: unsupported countries and territories
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