Crypto Brief: Japan’s Crypto Freeze Cracks as Nomura Wins Coveted New License

In the current cycle, nomura Holdings’ Laser Digital Japan has cracked Japan’s crypto licensing wall, ending a roughly four-year drought without a new industry entrant and planting one of the country’s financial heavyweights squarely inside regulated digital-asset trading.

Laser Digital Japan said this week that it completed registration as a Crypto Asset trading platform Service Provider under Japan’s Payment Services Act.

The Kanto Local Finance Bureau lists the company as registration No.

00032, and it has joined the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association.

Nomura is not using the license to chase retail traders with another crypto app.

Laser Digital is starting where institutional desks need help, supplying liquidity to Japan’s licensed crypto firms so bigger orders can clear without ripping through thin order books.

Institutional trading for professional Japanese investors comes later, although Laser Digital has not pinned down a launch date or revealed its complete product lineup.

The license covers a wide variety of crypto assets like bitcoin, ethereum, XRP, bitcoin cash, litecoin and shiba inu.