LINE Pay's 2022 Crypto Payment Test and What Happened Next

February 16, 2022

In February 2022, LINE Pay, the payments service of the Japanese messaging app LINE, announced that users would be able to pay with LINE's own crypto asset, LINK (LN), at some online stores in Japan. The trial ran from March 16 to December 26, 2022. Here is how it worked and what has happened since to the token, to LINE Pay and to crypto payments in messaging apps.

How the 2022 test worked

The feature, called "LINK payment", was offered jointly by three LINE group companies: LINE Pay; LVC, which ran LINE BITMAX, a crypto exchange registered with Japan's Financial Services Agency since 2019; and LINE TECH PLUS, the Singapore-based company that issued LINK on LINE Blockchain. Selected online merchants that accepted LINE Pay took part, and during the trial users could pay with LINK without commission fees.

Before the test, LINK holders who wanted to spend their tokens had to sell them on LINE BITMAX and pay a fee to move the money to their LINE Pay balance. The new option let them pay with the crypto asset directly at checkout, and LINE offered a 10% reward in LINK on these payments, capped at the equivalent of 5,000 yen per month. LINE Pay said it would use the results to decide whether to make LINK payment a standard service, and that it would also look into payments with other crypto assets, such as bitcoin and Ethereum.

What happened to LINK and LINE Pay

The token did not keep its name for long. In May 2023, with an upgrade of the network, LINK was renamed FINSCHIA (FNSA), and LINE Blockchain became Finschia, governed by the new Finschia Foundation and a group of member companies. In 2024 Finschia merged with Klaytn, the blockchain launched by Kakao's subsidiary Ground X, into a new network called Kaia. The Kaia mainnet went live on August 29, 2024, and FNSA could be converted into the new KAIA token. Kaia kept a link to the messenger: in January 2025 LINE NEXT launched Mini Dapps and a Dapp Portal inside LINE Messenger, built on Kaia and focused mainly on games and rewards.

The payment app changed even more. LINE Corporation became part of LY Corporation, formed in 2023 by the merger of Z Holdings, LINE and Yahoo Japan. In June 2024, LY Corporation announced that LINE Pay would end in Japan by April 30, 2025, and that its payment and money transfer services would be folded into PayPay, a payment app in the same group. LINE Pay in Thailand and Taiwan was not affected.

Crypto payments since then

Telegram has taken the idea further. In September 2023 Telegram and the TON Foundation announced TON Space, a self-custodial wallet for The Open Network (TON) inside Telegram's existing crypto wallet, and in January 2025 Telegram made TON the exclusive blockchain for its Mini Apps platform.

Japan, meanwhile, created rules for stablecoins. Amendments to the Payment Services Act that took effect in June 2023 treat stablecoins as "electronic payment instruments" and limit who may issue them. In October 2025 JPYC Inc. began issuing JPYC, the first yen stablecoin under these rules, redeemable one-to-one for yen. Large payment companies have moved the same way: PayPal launched its own dollar stablecoin in 2023.

Lessons for fintech product teams

Remove conversion steps. LINE's test let users pay directly instead of selling tokens and topping up a balance first. Every extra step and fee costs users.
Licensing comes first. LINE's test relied on a group company that was already a registered crypto exchange. In Japan and most other markets, handling crypto assets is regulated, and the license decides what the product may do.
Volatility is a product problem. A token whose price changes daily is awkward for shoppers and merchants alike, which is one reason payment projects are moving to stablecoins pegged to a national currency rather than platform tokens.
Design for change. Within about three years of the test, LINK had been renamed and merged into a new blockchain, and the app that tested it had closed in Japan. Keep payment providers, tokens and chains behind an abstraction layer so that one can be replaced without rebuilding the app.