Japanese payment gateway BITPoint is set to take Bitcoin payments to thousands of domestic retailers.
Having successfully partnered with Peach Air to facilitate its Bitcoin acceptance later this year, BITPoint is now seeking a considerably larger rollout.
“We’re holding discussions with a retail-related company,” Bloomberg quotes President Genki Oda on Monday.
“By going through a company providing payment terminal services to shops, we have the possibility of increasing its use at one stroke. It’s easier than talking to lots of individual retailers.”
The move mirrors those currently underway in Japan aimed at offering Bitcoin as a payment option for the mass consumer market.
Several partnerships are in the offing, the combined total merchant reach of which could see Bitcoin come to almost half a million outlets.
The upbeat Oda also spoke of a further project with a "big convenience store operator," details of which he hopes to announce at the start of 2018.
A law change in Japan in April allowing Bitcoin and similar currencies to be viewed as valid payment saw an explosion of enthusiasm from businesses, despite the consumer market itself still being relatively lacking.
Infrastructure is well underway to support an adoption swing, however, with almost 20 exchanges currently applying for a newly-developed licence as of this month.