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Among the recent green markets experienced by the community, more fundamental positive news continues to take place towards the adoption of blockchain technology.

Japan Railways is the biggest railway and subway operator in Japan. The Japan Railways Group (JR Group) lies at the heart of Japan’s railway network operating a large proportion of Japan’s intercity rail services, including Japan’s high-speed trains and their infrastructure is used daily by millions of Japanese citizens.

The JR Group is considering the integration of crypto assets like Bitcoin as a payment option. Now while no definitive decision has been made, their announcement of ‘consideration’ would not happen without serious intent actually to move forward with the development.

The JR Group is currently planning to establish a cryptocurrency company-possibly a cryptocurrency exchange- with a major bank, and possibly payment processing systems for cryptocurrencies, to help the group integrate cryptocurrencies.

The plan to integrate cryptocurrencies also goes all the way to their Suika card. This is the national prepaid public smart card that allows Japanese citizens to use the most public transport systems in Japan. This includes metros, trains, buses and the monorail; if approved, this would be the most prominent example yet of cryptocurrency adoption.

This is hugely encouraging for the nascent industry, as it shows a major prominent company has researched the benefits and drawbacks of integrating cryptocurrencies and decided to approve the plans.

The announcement arrives just days after previous big announcements from Japanese companies including Rakuten and Yahoo Japan.

At the same time, the Japanese FSA approved Rakuten exchange; they also revealed that they have another 140 applications yet to have deliberated on about individuals and companies who want to open new exchanges.

This is being achieved all the while, crypto is in a bear market, and it is hugely positive to see the growth and maturation of the cryptocurrency markets.

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