On Friday, Nomura announced it is now offering Bitcoin derivatives trading for Asian clients in the form of OTC non-deliverable forwards and options. Additionally, last week it executed its first Bitcoin futures and options transactions with CME Group and Cumberland DRW.
“Digital assets have come a long way in the past several years, with infrastructure growing to keep pace with investor interest,” Said Rig Karkhanis, Head of Global Markets, Asia ex-Japan. “Working with institutional grade counterparties will allow us to scale into the increasing demand from our clients.”
This follows the March announcement that Goldman Sachs had executed its first OTC Bitcoin options trade with Galaxy Digital as part of the expansion of institutional cryptocurrency offerings.
Nomura has been increasingly active in the digital assets space. It has a crypto custody joint venture Komainu, in conjunction with Coinhshares and technology provider Ledger. Last year Nomura invested in Crypto Garage, a licensed crypto-asset exchange that provides a settlement service SETTLENET.
In March of this year, Nomura also announced a new digital innovation subsidiary mentioning a focus on digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, security tokens and non-fungible tokens.
On the security token front, Nomura Holdings launched BOOSTRY, a security token issuance platform with related company Nomura Research Institute in 2019. More recently, it partnered with Tokyo Stock Exchange owner JPX to issue green bonds using the BOOSTRY platform.
Another Friday announcement may or may not be linked to digital assets. Nomura Holdings is partnering with Nomura Real Estate to expand its real estate fund management business. This is notable because BOOSTRY’s main competitor is Progmat, a security token platform developed by MUFG. And Progmat has so far been used for tokenizing real estate investments with plans to expand into other asset classes, utility tokens and stablecoins.
