Rakuten Wallet (楽天ウォレット) is the crypto exchange of the Rakuten group, run by a subsidiary of Rakuten Securities Holdings. It registered with Japan's Financial Services Agency in March 2019 and started letting customers buy crypto with Rakuten Points that December. Many international residents end up in the Rakuten ecosystem without planning to: a Rakuten Card is a common first credit card, Rakuten Bank is a popular net bank, and Rakuten Ichiba is everywhere. Rakuten Wallet plugs crypto into that loop.
The figures in this review come from Rakuten Wallet's official trading overview page and the FSA register. The official site was not reachable from our research environment, so fee figures come from an archived copy of that official page; terms can change, so confirm them on the site before you deposit.
Rakuten Wallet key facts
- Operator
- Rakuten Wallet, Inc., a subsidiary of Rakuten Securities Holdings
- Licences
- Crypto exchange: Kanto LFB No. 00015 (25 Mar 2019) · Financial instruments: Kanto LFB (Kinsho) No. 3190
- Coins
- 14 per the FSA register (30 Sep 2026): BTC, ETH, BCH, XRP, XLM, DOGE, SHIB, TON, SOL, ADA, TRX, AVAX, DOT, POL
- Spot trading
- Dealer desk only, market orders, from ¥100; no trading fee, spread applies
- Margin
- Separate order book, 1x–2x leverage; maker −0.01%, taker 0%, position fee 0.04% a day
- Yen in
- Free real-time deposit from a linked Rakuten Bank account (¥1,000+); transfers from other banks at your own cost
- Yen out
- ¥300 to a bank; free when charged to Rakuten Cash
- Crypto out
- 0.001 BTC per BTC withdrawal; deposits free
- Points
- Rakuten Points at 1 pt = ¥1, from 100 points
- Security
- Two-factor authentication, passkeys, ISO/IEC 27001 certification
What works
- Spend Rakuten Points on crypto at 1 point = ¥1, from 100 points
- Charge sale proceeds to Rakuten Cash with no withdrawal fee and spend them via Rakuten Pay
- Free real-time deposits from a linked Rakuten Bank account, including weekends and holidays
- Linking an existing Rakuten Bank account skips ID document submission
- Spot purchases from ¥100 with no trading fee
- iOS trading app rated 4.26 out of 5 from about 10,000 ratings (October 2026)
Watch out for
- Spot trading is dealer-only with market orders; the spread is not published
- Yen withdrawals to a bank cost ¥300 and can take up to 3 bank business days
- Only 14 coins, against 66 at Binance Japan and 44 at bitbank
- Sending BTC out costs 0.001 BTC, while SBI VC Trade and GMO Coin charge nothing
- Deposits from banks other than Rakuten Bank carry your own transfer fee
- We could not confirm current staking or recurring-buy offerings on the official site
Who is Rakuten Wallet for?
It is built for people already living inside Rakuten. If you collect thousands of Rakuten Points a month from your card and shopping, putting a few hundred of them into Bitcoin is a low-stakes way to learn how crypto behaves without spending your own yen. A Rakuten Bank account makes the rest smooth: free instant deposits, no separate ID upload at sign-up, and a direct path back to Rakuten Cash when you sell.
It is less suited to anyone trading meaningful sums. Every spot trade goes through Rakuten Wallet's dealer desk (販売所, hanbaijo)The dealer desk (販売所, hanbaijo): the exchange sells to you directly at a quoted price. Easy, but the buy-sell gap is your real cost., where you pay the spread on the way in and the way out. On an order book (取引所, torihikijo)The exchange or order book (取引所, torihikijo): users trade with each other at prices they set. Lower fees, slightly more complex orders. elsewhere, the same trade can cost a fraction as much. It is also a poor fit if you want a broad coin list, or if you plan to move small amounts of Bitcoin to your own wallet regularly.
A realistic way to use it is as a side account. Let points flow into a small Bitcoin or XRP position on Rakuten Wallet, and do any larger, deliberate buying on a cheaper order-book exchange. Because Rakuten Wallet lets you send BTC out (for a 0.001 BTC fee), you can still consolidate holdings in one wallet later, which is not possible with Mercari's crypto service.
Fees in practice: points versus real money
The headline "no trading fee" is true, but the cost moves into the spreadThe gap between the buy price and the sell price at the same moment. On dealer desks it can be several percent.. Rakuten Wallet doesn't publish its spread, so the examples below assume 2% each way purely for illustration.
| Scenario | Buy | Sell | Cash out | Total (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 points into BTC, sold to Rakuten Cash | ≈¥200 | ≈¥200 | ¥0 | ≈¥400 |
| ¥100,000 into BTC, sold and withdrawn to a bank | ≈¥2,000 | ≈¥2,000 | ¥300 | ≈¥4,300 |
| For reference: order-book exchange, 0.05% taker, free withdrawal | ≈¥50 | ≈¥50 | ¥0 | ≈¥100 |
For points-sized amounts the cost is a few hundred yen, paid out of points you might otherwise have spent on something forgettable. At ¥100,000 the gap with an order-book exchange such as GMO Coin or SBI VC Trade can reach thousands of yen. Compare live buy and sell prices on the purchase screen before each trade, and use our fee calculator to see how other exchanges compare.
Measuring the spread takes a few seconds: note the buy price and the sell price shown at the same moment and divide the gap by the buy price. A buy price of ¥10,000,000 and a sell price of ¥9,800,000 means a 2% gap. Spreads usually widen in fast markets and on thinly traded coins, so a quiet weekday is generally a better time to convert a large batch of points than the middle of a price spike.
On the margin order book, the official overview lists a maker fee of −0.01%, a taker fee of 0% and a position fee of 0.04% per day for positions held past the daily cut-off.
How the Rakuten Points loop works
Points go in at 1 point = ¥1, from 100 points, for spot coins. The redesigned app released on 14 October 2026 (Android first) combines spot and margin trading in one place and lets you pay with a mix of cash and points. Some point types, such as limited-time points, may not be eligible, so check before you rely on them.
The conversion is one-way: crypto never turns back into Rakuten Points. What you can do is sell and charge the yen to Rakuten Cash with no withdrawal fee, then spend it through Rakuten Pay or on Rakuten Ichiba. If the sale is at a profit, that gain is taxable, generally as miscellaneous income (雑所得)Japan's catch-all income category (雑所得, zatsu shotoku). Crypto gains usually fall here and are added to your salary for progressive tax.. Our Japan crypto tax guide explains the calculation, and the points-to-crypto comparison covers PayPay, Mercari, Ponta and other programmes.
Before your first points purchase
- Check you are spending regular points, not limited-time ones
- Pick a coin that is on the spot list (14 coins)
- Decide whether proceeds go to Rakuten Cash (free) or your bank (¥300)
- Keep a simple log of dates and amounts for tax time
Deposits and withdrawals
The smoothest route is a linked Rakuten Bank account: real-time deposits are free from ¥1,000 and usually credit immediately, weekends included, outside Rakuten Bank maintenance windows. Without Rakuten Bank, you transfer from another bank into a dedicated Rakuten Bank deposit account and pay your own transfer fee; according to the overview page, that option is for customers who opened their account through the standard online ID check rather than through Rakuten Bank linking.
As everywhere in Japan, the sending account must be in your own name. For international residents this is the most common snag: the name on your bank account must match the name on your Rakuten Wallet account exactly, including the order and spelling of a romanised name. Our guide to paying for crypto in Japan covers the bank-side issues.
Bank withdrawals cost ¥300 and arrive within three bank business days, with limits of ¥30 million per withdrawal and per day. Rakuten Cash charges are free. For crypto, deposits are free and sending out costs 0.001 BTC or 0.01 ETH per transfer; only some coins can be sent, so check the list first. Transfers follow Japan's Travel RuleRules that make exchanges pass sender and recipient details along with crypto transfers. In force in Japan since June 2023.; our wallet guide explains what to expect.
Coins and the margin exchange
The FSA register lists 14 coins: BTC, ETH, BCH, XRP, XLM, DOGE, SHIB, TON, SOL, ADA, TRX, AVAX, DOT and POL. XRP, DOGE, XLM, SHIB and TON joined spot trading in spring 2026, while Oasys (OAS) was dropped after a final delisting notice in December 2025.
The margin exchange is a true order book with market, limit, stop, IFD and OCO orders, and leverage set per order between 1x and 2x in 0.1 steps, the legal maximum for individuals in Japan. The archived overview from March 2025 listed nine pairs; the current line-up may differ. Margin trading can lose more than your deposit and is not a beginner tool.
Rakuten also offers a separate "web3 wallet" app for NFTs and blockchain games, registered with a Rakuten ID. We could not confirm current staking or recurring-buy offerings on the official site, so this review does not rate them; if those matter to you, SBI VC Trade and GMO Coin both offer staking and recurring buys from ¥500.
Safety and track record
As an FSA-registered exchange, Rakuten Wallet must segregate customer assets and keep most crypto in offline cold wallets. It supports two-factor authentication and passkeys (biometric log-in without a password), and holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security. The October 2026 app uses passkey log-in by default.
The iOS trading app is rated 4.26 out of 5 from about 10,000 ratings. Note that yen deposits and withdrawals pause during Rakuten Bank maintenance. Scammers sometimes borrow the Rakuten name in social-media investment pitches; the real Rakuten Wallet never asks you to pay into a personal bank account. See our crypto scams guide.
Opening an account as a foreign resident
You'll need a Rakuten member ID and a Japanese address. Rakuten says accounts can open the same day at the earliest. The process: log in with your Rakuten ID, fill in the application, then verify your identity, either by linking a Rakuten Bank account (no documents needed) or through the online ID check.
For foreign residents, the Rakuten Bank link is the path of least resistance, because the bank has already checked your residence card. We could not confirm the full list of accepted documents for foreign nationals on the official site. Expect the application to be in Japanese, and since January 2026 to include a tax-residence self-certification under the OECD's CARF rules. For eligibility by visa type, see crypto for foreigners in Japan; for a first-purchase walkthrough, how to buy Bitcoin in Japan.
Alternatives to Rakuten Wallet
If your points come from somewhere else, there is likely a matching route: PayPay Points at Binance Japan, Mercari points and sales balance at Mercoin, and Orico or Aplus points at SBI VC Trade. See the Binance Japan review, Mercoin review and SBI VC Trade review. For cheaper trading with real money, the GMO Coin review covers an exchange with order-book spot trading and free withdrawals. For the wider picture of crypto inside Japanese super-apps, read crypto in Japanese apps.
Rakuten Wallet: common questions
Can I buy Bitcoin with Rakuten Points?
Yes. Rakuten Wallet accepts Rakuten Points at 1 point = ¥1 for spot crypto purchases, starting from 100 points. The new app launched in October 2026 also lets you combine cash and points in one purchase. Points cannot be converted back: once spent on crypto, they are gone.
What are Rakuten Wallet's fees?
According to the official overview page, account opening, maintenance, spot trades and yen deposits are free; yen withdrawals to a bank cost ¥300, and charging sale proceeds to Rakuten Cash is free. Spot trades go through a dealer desk, so an unpublished spread is built into the price. Sending BTC out costs 0.001 BTC.
Can foreigners open a Rakuten Wallet account?
You need a Rakuten member ID and must live in Japan. If you already have a Rakuten Bank account, linking it lets you skip document submission because the bank has verified you. We could not confirm the full list of ID documents for foreign nationals on the official site, so check the help pages before applying.
How many coins does Rakuten Wallet have?
Fourteen, according to the FSA register as of 30 September 2026: BTC, ETH, BCH, XRP, XLM, DOGE, SHIB, TON, SOL, ADA, TRX, AVAX, DOT and POL. XRP, DOGE, XLM, SHIB and TON were added to spot trading in spring 2026.
Is there an order book on Rakuten Wallet?
Only for leveraged margin trading, capped at 2x for individuals. Spot buying and selling is dealer-style with market orders only, so you trade at the price Rakuten Wallet quotes.
Is crypto bought with points taxed?
Gains on crypto are generally taxed when you sell, swap or spend it, as miscellaneous income at progressive rates of up to about 55% including resident tax. Keep a record of what you bought with points and when; a tax office or tax accountant can advise on your specific case.
Sources
- FSA: Register of crypto-asset exchange service providers
- Rakuten Wallet: Trading overview (fees, deposits, limits)
- Rakuten Group: Press release on buying crypto with Rakuten Points (2019)
- App Store: Rakuten Wallet crypto trading app
- PaymentNavi: Rakuten Wallet launches new app (October 2026)
- National Tax Agency: Crypto-asset tax FAQ
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