Nomura-Backed Laser Digital Becomes Japan’s First New Crypto Exchange in Four Years

Japan has opened a long-shut regulatory door. Laser Digital Japan, the digital-asset arm of Nomura Holdings, has secured registration as a Crypto Asset Exchange Service Provider under Japan’s Payment Services Act.

The approval, registration number Kanto Local Finance Bureau No. 00032, makes Laser Digital Japan the first firm to receive such a licence in four years, since 2022.

The move arrives just as Japan rewrites its crypto rulebook from the ground up.

Laser Digital Opens Japan’s Institutional Gateway

The firm will initially provide liquidity services to domestic virtual asset service providers (VASPs).

Deeper order-book liquidity means tighter spreads for the entire Japanese market. Institutional trading services, targeting corporates, pension funds, and government-linked entities.

All these are planned to follow, though no launch date has been confirmed.

Supported assets currently include BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, and SHIB. Jez Mohideen, co-founder and CEO of Laser Digital Japan, described the registration as a market inflection point.

“Japan’s digital assets market is entering a new phase of maturity. As institutional investors increase their interest in this asset class, there remains a need for trusted counterparties and infrastructure designed specifically for their requirements.”

The appetite is already visible in the numbers. A 2026 survey by Nomura and Laser Digital showed that 79% of Japanese institutional respondents plan to invest in crypto within three years.

Digital asset holdings by Japanese investors reached ¥4.9 trillion (~$33 billion) as of September 2025. That is the demand pool Laser Digital Japan is now positioned to serve.

Japan already moved to tighten insider-trading rules and cut the crypto tax rate toward a flat 20%, down from a previous ceiling of up to 55%, through Japan’s landmark crypto reform bill.

Those changes are expected to take full effect around 2027–2028, giving institutions a cleaner long-term cost structure.

Why This Licence Matters: The Four-Year Drought Ends

Japan’s crypto registry was effectively frozen after a wave of exchange scandals in the early 2020s. Strict vetting standards kept new entrants out. Laser Digital Japan’s approval is therefore a high-signal event.

It confirms that regulators are willing to admit globally credentialled, institutionally backed players into a market they had kept tightly closed.

The regulatory backdrop has also shifted at a structural level. Japan recently reclassified crypto assets as financial instruments, moving their legal footing toward the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

That shift lays the foundation for exchange-traded products, with Japan’s first crypto ETFs expected as early as 2028. Nomura has been flagged as a likely first mover among ETF issuers.

Laser Digital Japan’s registration now reads as a staging post for that ambition.

Laser Digital is no stranger to regulated markets. The firm holds a VARA licence in Dubai, operates in Switzerland, and received a conditional OCC trust bank approval in the United States.

That global compliance track record gave Japanese regulators a credible basis for assessment.

For investors tracking who is building Asia’s institutional crypto rails, the existing licensed exchange landscape in Japan has now gained its most globally integrated participant.

Steve Ashley, co-founder and executive chairman of Laser Digital, framed the entry as part of a broader global shift. “Sophisticated investors are increasingly looking for access and the necessary quality of infrastructure behind it.”

Japan’s 2026 Basic Policy explicitly references on-chain finance, a sign the government sees digital assets as part of the country’s financial architecture, not a fringe risk to manage.

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