Earlier this week, Tokai Tokyo invested in a new blockchain development company for tokenized securities trading. Tokai Tokyo Financial Holdings will own 33% of the new firm, Hash Dash Holdings. The other equal shareholders are the Hash Dash founder Kazuto Hayashi, and ICH X TECH, the Singapore firm that runs iSTOX, the Nikkei reported. The capital is 150 million yen ($1.4 million).
Last November, Tokai Tokyo invested $5 million in iSTOX, the platform that offers a one-stop issuance, custody and trading of digitized securities. At the time, it was in the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) sandbox but has since graduated and is now a recognized market operator with a capital market services license. Other iSTOX backers include the Singapore Exchange (SGX), state-owned Temasek’s investment arm Heliconia Capital, Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management and a Thai investment bank.
Meanwhile, Nikkei reported that Hash Dash has technology for issuing digital securities and enabling individuals to trade on smartphones. The three companies will work on tokenizing Japanese real estate in the summer and list the securities on iSTOX. They plan in the future to also tokenize intellectual property rights and bonds.
Japanese firms are very active in securities tokenization. Nomura and Nomura Research Institute initiated the BOOSTRY platform, which initially targets bonds. Blockchain token platform Securitize, which has already created a Japanese real estate investment platform, has received funding from numerous Japanese firms. These include Sony Financial Ventures, Nomura, MUFG, SBI Holdings, KDDI and Mitsui Fudosan.
