Bank Nomura Offers Ethereum Investment For Institutional Investors, ETH Price Soars

Japan's leading investment bank, Nomura Holdings. (Photo; Doc. WSJ)

JAKARTA - Japan's largest investment bank, Nomura Holdings, launched an Ethereum-based investment fund for institutional investors through its digital asset subsidiary, the Laser Digital Asset Management, according to a press release released on November 9.

The fund, called "Laser Digital Ethereum Adoption Fund SP", is the second digital adoption solution investment fund introduced by the Digital Laser after launching the Laser Digital Bitcoin Adoption Fund last September.

The new fund will focus on the long-term spot position on Ethereum, reported by CryptoSlate. The fund is expected to increase yields through innovative strategies involving ETH staking owned by the fund. The fund is managed as a separate portfolio in the Laser Digital Funds SPC, a separate portfolio company listed in the Cayman Islands.

Laser Digital has partnered with Komainu as a store for the assets of the fund. The company also acts as a store of assets for the Bitcoin Digital Laser fund. Komainu is a company regulated by the UK Financial Behavior Authority and the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority in Dubai.

Sebastian Guglietta, head of the Laser Digital Asset Management and former Chief Scientist Officer Nomura, said his company sees Ethereum as a technology catalyst that will digitize the economy. He added that in the long term, exposure to Ethereum is very important to capture the structural technology trend of the web economy 3.

Meanwhile, Total King, head of the Laser Digital Asset Management distribution, said that the fund would simplify investment in digital assets and provide a safe way for institutional investors to gain exposure in the industry because it is fully regulated.

Launching CryptoPolitan, Steven Ashley, co-founder and executive chairman at Laser Digital, said that the funds offer added value to investors interested in the technology underlying the Web3 ecosystem, such as smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFT).

He also said that Ethereum has an important role as a building block for this digital infrastructure, and is therefore of interest to their institutional clients. The launch of Ethereum funds by Nomura Laser Digital shows that there is growing interest from traditional financial institutions to integrate digital assets into their investment portfolios.

At the time of writing, the price of ETH has increased by 9.9% in the last 24 hours. Now ETH is trading at IDR 32.8 million based on Coingecko data reports.