Bitcoin Loans

Nomura’s involvement in Bitcoin represents one of the clearest examples of a major global investment bank attempting to bridge traditional finance and the emerging world of digital assets. Through its digital-asset subsidiary, Laser Digital, Nomura has moved beyond simple trading or custody and begun to design structured products that treat Bitcoin as both a macro asset and a technological platform. This strategy positions Bitcoin not merely as a speculative instrument but as a building block in a broader institutional portfolio, backed by the bank’s risk management culture and regulatory awareness.

A central pillar of Nomura’s Bitcoin work is the creation of specialized investment funds that give institutions curated exposure to the asset class. Initially, this effort was visible in the Bitcoin Adoption Fund, launched under Laser Digital Asset Management to provide straightforward, institutional-grade access to spot Bitcoin with professional custody and oversight. By framing Bitcoin as a long-term store of value that can sit alongside more familiar assets, Nomura has sought to normalize its presence within conventional asset allocation frameworks rather than relegating it to a fringe or experimental bucket.

More recently, Nomura has shifted from simple exposure to more sophisticated Bitcoin utilization through the launch of a tokenized Bitcoin yield fund. The Laser Digital Bitcoin Diversified Yield Fund SP is designed not only to track Bitcoin’s price but to generate additional income by combining long-only holdings with market-neutral strategies such as arbitrage, lending, and options writing. In practical terms, this means the fund attempts to transform passive Bitcoin ownership into an actively managed position that can deliver excess returns over the underlying asset’s performance across different market conditions.

The tokenized structure of Nomura’s new Bitcoin fund illustrates its commitment to using blockchain infrastructure, not just investing in assets that live on it. Fund interests are represented as digital tokens issued via a dedicated tokenization platform, which can improve settlement speed, transparency, and operational efficiency for qualified investors. At the same time, Nomura relies on regulated custodians such as Komainu—formed as a joint venture between Nomura and crypto-native partners—to hold the underlying Bitcoin, combining on-chain innovation with institutional-grade security and compliance.

Taken together, these initiatives show that Nomura’s role in Bitcoin extends beyond simple trading desks into the broader development of institutional infrastructure around the asset. By offering yield-focused, tokenized Bitcoin products to non‑U.S. institutional and accredited investors, the bank is helping to define how large, regulated players can participate in decentralized finance while still operating within familiar legal and risk frameworks. In doing so, Nomura contributes both to the utilization of Bitcoin as an income-generating institutional asset and to the ongoing development of the technological, legal, and operational rails that support its long-term integration into global markets.

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