Yahoo! Japan works with Line to launch NFT trading

Major Japanese internet company Yahoo! Japan has partnered with messaging giant Line to launch nonfungible token (NFT) trading.

Line officially announced Tuesday that its cryptocurrency-focused subsidiary LVC Corporation would collaborate with Yahoo! Japan to enable secondary trading of NFTs issued on Line’s proprietary blockchain.

As part of the partnership, Yahoo! Japan would place Line blockchain-based NFTs on its online auction service Yahoo! Auctions, a service set up by the company back in 1998 to compete with e-commerce giant eBay.

To enable NFT trading on the platform, the two partners would integrate Yahoo! Auctions with the Line Bitmax wallet, Line’s proprietary blockchain wallet designed for managing digital assets, including NFTs. The collaboration will enable users to trade NFTs managed through the Line Bitmax wallet directly on Yahoo! Auctions. According to the announcement, the companies expect to launch NFT trading on Yahoo! Auctions by late 2021.

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“We will work with other partners to revitalize the distribution of valuable content and contribute to the expansion of the secondary distribution market in the NFT industry,” the announcement notes.

The announcement comes soon after Line launched the NFT Market Beta Service on its Line Bitmax wallet in late June.

As previously reported, Yahoo! Japan has been an active player in the cryptocurrency industry in Japan. The company is known for backing Taotao; a major local cryptocurrency exchange launched in 2019. The exchange was acquired by Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings last October.