China, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. In January 2015, Rakuten entered the sport of football by acquiring Vissel Kobe, a top J-League team formed in 1995. In March 2015, Rakuten announced that it would begin accepting bitcoin across its global marketplaces, shortly after investing in San Francisco–based bitcoin payments-processing startup Bitnet Technologies. Rakuten has been a strong supporter of bitcoin's potential, and was one of the first major companies to accept bitcoin for payment. In 2016, Rakuten shut down retailing websites in the UK, Spain, Austria, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. In that year, the company lost its long status as the largest e-commerce site in Japan to Amazon Japan. On November 16, 2016, Rakuten announced it had agreed to a four-year partnership with the La Liga football club FC Barcelona, one of the most successful football teams in Europe. The agreement would see Rakuten become FC Barcelona's main global partner beginning with the 2017-18 season, with its name appearing on match-day jerseys. The deal was worth at least €220 million and includes an option for a one-year extension. In February 2017, Ebates and Rakuten acquired Shopstyle and its influencer marketing group, Collective, to extend into fashion curation and discovery and product search. Rakuten partnered with California-based Blackstorm Labs to launch an online social gaming platform called R Games in April 2017, going live with 15 free games optimized for smartphones, including Pac-Man and Space Invaders. The games are based on HTML5, which can be played across any device and on any platform, and Rakuten will tap into its worldwide database of 114 million online shoppers. Rakuten plans to integrate R Games into its messaging app Viber. In September 2017, Rakuten signed a three-year, $60 million deal to become the official sponsor for the jersey patch on the front of the uniforms for the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. Rakuten partnered with Walmart for a late push on e-books in January 2018. The company announced plans to launch its own cryptocurrency in March. In May 2018, Rakuten announced the fourth wireless mobile network of Japan, named Rakuten Mobile. In June 2018 Ebates and Rakuten acquired Curbside to accelerate its online-to-offline offering to members and merchants. In September 2019, negotiations successfully closed to acquire Chinese baseball team, the Lamigo Monkeys. With the sale, Rakuten became the first foreign company to own a Chinese Professional Baseball League team. Terms of