Nomura invests in Ethereum money market protocol

Japan-based banking giant Nomura, announced today that its digital assets subsidiary, Laser Digital, has made a strategic investment in Infinity, a non-custodial interest rate protocol built on Ethereum.

Infinity’s wholesale exchange, the first of several planned infrastructures, provides inter-exchange clearing, fixed and floating rate markets, as well as enterprise-grade risk management utilizing hybrid on-chain/off-chain infrastructures that deliver transaction efficiency, security, and scalability.

Infinity is a pioneering interest rate protocol that forms the basis for benchmark rates, institutional-grade lending, borrowing, and risk management in DeFi. The money market exchange protocol was founded by ex-Morgan Stanley Head of Structuring, Kevin Lepsoe.

“Infinity is building critical infrastructure for DeFi, and its protocol enabling price discovery and management of risk within DeFi is transformative for institutions, Infinity’s groundwork paves the way for institutional flows on-chain, new levels of rates, and risk innovation, and we are keen to support their advances in the hybrid finance space.”
– Olivier Dang,  Head of Ventures at Laser Digital

Laser Digital was recently unveiled by Nomura to spearhead its digital asset ambitions and is chaired by Steve Ashley, who previously led Nomura’s wholesale division, with Dr. Jez Mohideen as its CEO. Headquartered in Switzerland, Laser Digital’s investments are focused on DeFi, centralized finance (CeFi), web3, and blockchain infrastructure.

The investment comes as the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) published guidelines for crypto exposures in December 2022, with bank-prescribed risk weightings for tokenized assets to be treated on par 1:1 with their analog counterparts. The guidelines for banks come into effect on 1 January 2025.

With USD $300 trillion of credit securities outstanding and multiples of that in the loan, derivative, and equity markets, the new guidelines portend a major wave of tokenization across financial and real assets.

Presently in Beta, the Inifinity mainnet is scheduled to launch by the end of Q2 2023.