Nomura Holdings, Inc.’s digital asset division, Laser Digital, has invested strategically in Infinity, a decentralized finance protocol that caters to institutional lending and borrowing. This move is a testament to Laser Digital’s commitment to exploring innovative solutions in the digital asset space.
In a joint announcement, the corporations have unveiled the Infinity protocol as a robust framework for businesses to establish benchmark interest rates, lending, borrowing, and risk management in decentralized financial systems. While the statement highlights the protocol’s potential, the investment amount remains undisclosed.
In a statement, Olivier Dang, Ventures Head at Laser, said;
Infinity’s groundwork paves the way for institutional flows on-chain, new levels of rates, and risk innovation.
This investment marks a significant milestone in the emerging trend of merging crypto-native DeFi infrastructure with traditional financial (TradFi) solutions. Industry experts predict that this convergence will enable tokenizing assets, including credit, and establishing blockchain-based markets tailored to institutional investors. The potential benefits of this innovative approach are vast, and it could revolutionize how we think about investing and asset management.
Financial institutions are demonstrating a growing fascination with cryptocurrencies, as evidenced by the recent actions of Laser Digital. This development follows the unfortunate demise of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. It is worth noting that this collapse triggered a series of stringent measures in the United States, which effectively pushed the sector to the fringes of the financial world, according to reliable sources.
According to sources, Laser Digital was founded by Nomura amidst a downturn in the cryptocurrency market in 2018. The esteemed Steve Ashley, a former trading and investment banking leader, was appointed as the company’s chairman.
To summarize, the development of this innovative finance solution aligns with the latest guidelines for cryptocurrency exposures issued by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in December 2022.
This proposal advocates for the equitable treatment of tokenized assets by assigning them a risk-weighting equivalent to their traditional counterparts. As a result, effective January 1, 2025, international banking regulations will be updated to reflect this standard.
