Rakuten Wallet did not add XRP spot trading in isolation. According to senior analyst Yasuo Matsuda, the move reflects a specific theory the exchange has been building toward: that crypto payments have been stuck for years behind two unsolved problems, and that solving both together, not separately, is what finally makes real-world settlement viable.
The two-part problem Rakuten says crypto had to solve
Matsuda traced the issue back to Bitcoin’s original premise: cross-border settlement without financial intermediaries. That premise ran into two practical walls. Transaction processing was too slow for real commerce, and price volatility made holding crypto for even short periods risky.
Stablecoins, in Rakuten’s framing, solved the volatility side. XRP, according to Matsuda, was built specifically to solve the speed side. Put together, he argues, the two finally close the gap between crypto’s technical capabilities and what businesses actually need for settlement.
Corporate transfers, not retail spending, sit behind the strategy
The retail-facing changes are the most visible part of this launch. XRP purchased through Rakuten Wallet can convert into Rakuten Cash, usable across Rakuten’s retail network and its Rakuten Ichiba marketplace. Users can also buy XRP directly with Rakuten Points rather than committing their own money, which Matsuda said lowers the psychological barrier for people wary of risking cash on crypto.
But Matsuda pointed to a less visible use case as the real driver: corporate treasury operations. He cited intercompany settlements, cross-border transfers tied to employee expenses, and B2B payments routed through Japanese accounts as underserved needs that crypto settlement rails could open up. These are recurring operational costs for global companies, not one-off consumer transactions, which is where Matsuda sees the larger addressable opportunity.
Liquidity as the practical argument for XRP specifically
Matsuda’s case for XRP over other settlement-focused assets rests partly on liquidity. He pointed to XRP’s position as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization as evidence of depth sufficient for remittance and settlement flows, distinguishing this from assets whose usage skews mostly speculative.
A shift in posture, not just a product launch
Matsuda framed the listing as one piece of a broader pattern: blockchain-based real-world assets and security tokens opening market categories that did not previously exist, and financial institutions that were traditionally defensive on crypto moving toward more active participation. He described regulatory posture as shifting in parallel, though he did not cite specific policy changes.
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