Laser Digital, the digital asset subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, has registered as a crypto asset exchange service provider in Japan, becoming the first new entrant on Japan’s register of licensed crypto exchanges in about four years.
Laser Digital Japan completed the registration under Japan’s Payment Services Act on Friday, handing the firm a regulated foothold in one of Asia’s largest crypto markets after a stretch of tighter oversight and few new exchange approvals. The last new arrival, Binance, entered in November 2022 by taking over the FSA-registered Sakura Exchange BitCoin.
Laser Digital Starts With Liquidity
The firm will begin by serving domestic crypto asset businesses, concentrating on improving market liquidity rather than opening trading to a broad client base. It also plans to explore digital asset trading services for Japanese institutional investors, though it has not fixed a date for that expansion.
Laser Digital said it would disclose the timing and details of its service launch later. Co-founder and chief executive Jez Mohideen tied the registration to deepening institutional appetite, describing a market entering “a new phase of maturity” and pointing to demand for counterparties and infrastructure built for professional investors.
“Japan’s digital assets market is entering a new phase of maturity, making this an important moment for our registration approval. As institutional investors increase their interest in this asset class, there remains a need for trusted counterparties and infrastructure designed specifically for their requirements.”
The registration closes out a market-entry effort that began the previous year, when Laser Digital opened pre-consultation talks with Japan’s Financial Services Agency as it weighed a regulated institutional business. Mohideen confirmed at the time that the firm sat in that pre-application stage with the regulator.
Founded in 2022, Laser Digital operates as Nomura’s digital asset subsidiary and runs trading, asset management and venture capital businesses across several jurisdictions, including a licensed operation in Dubai. Its Japanese registration now converts that preparation into direct access to the country’s regulated crypto market.
Japan’s Regulatory Overhaul Widens the Door for Institutional Crypto
The approval arrives as Japan reshapes its digital asset rules, with parliament passing legislation in July that reclassifies roughly 105 crypto assets from the Payment Services Act into the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the statute governing stocks and bonds. The changes are expected to take effect in fiscal 2027 and would hold crypto to investor-protection standards closer to those for traditional securities.
That shift runs alongside a broader build-out of regulated crypto services, seen recently when Ripple brought its RLUSD stablecoin to Japan through SBI VC Trade after the token cleared the country’s payments framework. Nomura has moved into the same market, with Circle and Nomura targeting 2027 for a service that would let Japanese companies settle foreign exchange transactions in dollar-denominated stablecoins.
Laser Digital’s registration adds another institutional name to the expanding market, starting with liquidity for domestic crypto businesses before it decides when to extend trading to Japanese institutions.