Making Mercari the number one place in the world where cryptocurrencies are actually used - Keita Nakamura from Mercoin

Mercari, which launched its Bitcoin trading service in March 2023, has become a hot topic in the domestic cryptocurrency industry, with over 1 million users in just 7 months.

At the center of this rapid growth is Nakamura Keita, who became CEO in April 2023. As he approaches the one-year anniversary of his appointment, we take a closer look at his thoughts on the Bitcoin payment service that has finally been launched, as well as Mercari's future strategy and outlook.

The young CEO who led the company's leap forward in 2023 talks about the future

It's been almost a year since you became CEO in April last year. Looking back on the service development and business so far, what kind of year has it been?

Nakamura Keita (hereinafter, Nakamura): NFTs and crypto assets have had quite a few ups and downs, so I think the timing just before I took office and just before the release of the Mercoin service was the worst, and it was a pretty tough situation.

However, we gradually gained momentum after we started, and as physical ETFs started to pick up steam around the end of last year, we were able to clearly demonstrate our position as a mass-adopted cryptocurrency in Japan. I think it's been that kind of year.

Looking back on the past year, was there anything that was difficult?

Nakamura: Rather than saying it was difficult, the industry has picked up speed more than we expected and our customers have been quick to accept us, so if anything, it was the pressure to speed up our next move.

On top of that, we had to think about making it meaningful, so we spent a lot of time on that.

Customer surveys also show that the service is highly popular among users, but what do you think are the reasons for this?

Nakamura: For customers who had not been onboarded before, we focused on figuring out what the hurdles were and how to overcome them.

For example, for people who think that opening an account seems difficult, or that they want to try but are afraid, we designed a service that focuses on removing those challenges, and I think the biggest factor was that we communicated that to them.

For example, opening an account takes as little as 30 seconds, which is an experience that I have never seen at other exchanges. In that sense, I think it is revolutionary.