Mercoin, Inc. — Japan crypto-asset exchange operator overview

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This entry sits under exchanges index. Read it with FSA crypto-asset exchange registration system — number system / Local Finance Bureau jurisdiction / registration requirements for adjacent context and Japan Financial Regulation — Legal Framework for Tokens, Crypto Assets, and Payments for the broader system boundary.

FSA registration number Kanto Local Finance Bureau 第00030号 · JVCEA member #1039 · registration date 2022-06-17

1. Corporation / shareholders

• Trade name: Mercoin, Inc. / Mercoin, Inc.
• Established: 2021年4月28日
• Head-office location: Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-chome 10-ban 1号, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
• Parent company: a wholly owned subsidiary of Mercari, Inc. (TSE Prime 4385)
• Affiliated company: Merpay, Inc. (an in-group fintech sister company)
• no disclosure of capital / investment ratio

2. License / registration status

• Crypto-asset exchange business: Director-General of the Kanto Local Finance Bureau 第00030号 (registration date 2022-06-17)
• Financial-instruments business: not acquired (no support for derivatives trading)
• Electronic-payment-instruments business, etc.: not acquired
• JVCEA membership: Type I, crypto-asset exchange business only (member number 1039)

3. Handled currencies

• Number of handled brands: 3 types (confirmed as of 2025-04-24)
  • Bitcoin (BTC) — handling started 2023-03
  • Ethereum (ETH) — added 2024-05-21
  • XRP — added 2025-04-24
• Order-book trading (exchange format) is not provided. All brands are sales-outlet format only (with spread, no fees)
• Leveraged trading / derivatives: not supported

4. Business scope

• Spot sales outlet: buying and selling of BTC / ETH / XRP
• Crypto-asset accumulation function: BTC (started 2024-08-01), ETH (started 2024-10-22). Supports automatic deduction from the Merpay balance (2024-12), added a daily-accumulation function (2025-07-31)
• Bitcoin payment: Bitcoin payment in shopping within Mercari (started 2024-02-15)
• Point-granting function: grants monthly Mercari points simply by holding eligible crypto assets (started 2024-12-18)
• Fiat-currency deposit channel: Merpay-balance charging (bank / ATM transfer); direct purchase with Mercari sales proceeds / Mercari points is the biggest characteristic
• Corporate services / staking: not provided (within the disclosed scope)

5. Market share / trading volume

• 2024-04 (approximately 1 year after the service start): number of users surpassed 200万 people (the company’s press release)
• 2023-10 (7 months after the service start): number of users surpassed 100万 people
• 2024-05: the company announced that the number of crypto-asset account openings in the most recent 1 year was No. 1 in the industry (MMD Labo survey)
• detailed figures such as monthly trading volume / assets-in-custody balance: not disclosed
• Customer base: individual retail centered on existing Mercari users (smartphone users). Designed for small-amount purchases from 1 円
• Position within the competition: officially claimed to be in the industry-top class by number of account openings. However, trader-oriented functions are limited, and as a full-fledged buying-and-selling platform it makes a different segment its main battlefield from the major specialized exchanges (bitFlyer / bitbank, etc.). Its retail-economic-sphere linkage forms the Domestic CEX × points-economy integration model pattern alongside Rakuten Wallet, Inc. — Japan crypto-asset exchange overview.

6. History / major incidents

• Administrative dispositions / hacks / major outages: no cases confirmable within the disclosed scope (as of 2026-05-18)

7. Strategic developments

• Business alliance with Coincheck (concluded 2025-08-05): detailed terms are non-public
• Pace of brand expansion: increasing at a pace of 1 brands per year, BTC (2023) → ETH (2024-05) → XRP (2025-04)
• Expansion of the accumulation function: the accumulation targets expanded from BTC → ETH, with a daily-accumulation option added (2025-07)
• XJPY / XUSD industry-wide stablecoin: announced participation in joint study with Ginco, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust, and Progmat in 2023-11 (commercialization schedule, etc. not disclosed)
• The positioning as the fintech three pillars of the Mercari group (Merpay: payment / remittance / credit / Mercard: credit card / Mercoin: crypto assets) is clear. Mercoin is positioned as the core of the blockchain / Web 3 strategy

8. Related persons

• Representative Director / CEO: Keita Nakamura — assumed office 2023-04 . Joined Mercari as a new graduate (2018), R&4D blockchain engineer → Merpay → via Mercoin CPO
• Director / CRCO: Masahiro Shidachi — former Nomura HD global-risk-management MD. Joined 2023-09 , 2024-07 current position
• Director / CTO: Takahito Yamatoya — former bitFlyer executive officer, head of the system-development division
• Director / CISO: Yuki Saito
• Directors: Takeshi Nagasawa (former bitFlyer executive officer), Masato Yamamoto (former Merpay Representative Director / CEO), Toshiya Kimura, Naohisa Ichihara (assumed office 2025-05 )

Related

• japan-financial-regulation — Japanese financial regulation overall
• japan-bittrade-listing-process — general theory of the listing process (distinct from the listing activities of individual companies)
• japan-stablecoin-regulatory-landscape — related stablecoin system
• jp-trust-type-sc-architecture — related SC system
• jp-cex-points-economy-integration — JP CEX point-economy integration (Mercari-point linkage)
• progmat — Progmat stablecoin platform
• jp-vasp-parent-company-map — JP VASP parent-company map

Sources

• Mercoin corporate site (about.mercoin.com) (retrieved 2026-05-18)
• Mercoin company overview / Management (retrieved 2026-05-18)
• Mercoin news list (retrieved 2026-05-18)
• Mercoin BTC service-start press release 2023-03-09 (retrieved 2026-05-18)
• JVCEA member list (retrieved 2026-05-18)
• FSA crypto-asset exchange operator registration list Excel (snapshot 令和8年4月1日 = 2026-04-01)