[NEWS] Mercari's Bitcoin trading service exceeds 2 million users in about a year since its launch

Mercoin, a subsidiary of Mercari, which operates a flea market app, and which provides and develops blockchain services, announced on the 11th that the number of users of its Bitcoin (BTC) trading service has exceeded 2 million in about a year. The company also revealed that the number of uses of Bitcoin payments, announced in February this year, exceeded 100,000 in one month since it became available to all users.

Since launching its service in March last year, Mercoin has exceeded 1 million users in about seven months. The company's strength is that even users with no experience in Bitcoin trading can easily trade, and the number of users continues to increase at an accelerating rate.

In addition, at the end of 2023, it ranked first in the category of "Cryptocurrency trading services that started to be used in 2023" in the "2023 Cryptocurrency Survey" published by MMD Research Institute, operated by MMD Labo. In terms of service satisfaction by category, it also ranked first in both "ease of starting use" and "ease of use of the app".

As of the end of February 2024, the number of cryptocurrency (virtual currency) trading accounts in Japan is approximately 9.52 million. Of these, the number of trading accounts in the industry as a whole increased by 2.9 million in the approximately one year period from the end of 2023 to the end of February 2024.

Mercari's Bitcoin trading service has expanded its user base at a rate that accounts for approximately 63% of the increase in the number of trading accounts in the industry as a whole during the same period.

One of the factors behind the steady increase in the number of users is that the Bitcoin trading service is completed within the Mercari app, and users can start buying and selling Bitcoin immediately. Another strength is that users can purchase Bitcoin from as little as 1 yen using the proceeds and points earned by selling items they no longer use on Mercari.

83% of users who actually use the service answered that they have no experience in cryptocurrency trading, and there are an increasing number of cases where many users are trading cryptocurrency for the first time on Mercari.

In addition, 50% of users who purchased Bitcoin have a Merpay balance, which suggests that the fact that users can easily start trading Bitcoin using the proceeds earned from selling items they no longer use on Mercari is leading to an increase in users.

It was also revealed that approximately half (51%) of users who sold Bitcoin shopped on Mercari.

The announcement explained that "the addition of the Bitcoin trading service to the Mercari Group has led to the emergence of new circulation behaviors, such as using Mercari sales to buy Bitcoin, then selling the Bitcoin to shop on Mercari."

The introduction of the Bitcoin payment function also makes it possible to seamlessly purchase items using Bitcoin, and adds that "the new circulation behaviors born from Mercari's Bitcoin trading service are accelerating."

Reference: Announcement
Image: Quoted from the announcement

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