Japanese banking giant Nomura announced today that its digital asset subsidiary, Laser Digital, has made a strategic investment in Infinity, an Ethereum-based non-custodial interest rate protocol.
infinity wholesale exchangethe first of several planned infrastructures, provides inter-exchange clearing, fixed and floating rate markets, as well as enterprise-grade risk management using hybrid on-chain/off-chain infrastructures that ensure efficiency, security and transaction 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 former Morgan Stanley head of structuring, Kevin Lepsoe.
“Infinity is building critical infrastructure for DeFi, and its protocol enabling price discovery and risk management within DeFi is transformative for institutions, Infinity’s groundwork is paving the way for on-chain institutional flows, new rate levels and risk innovation, and we are keen to support their advances in the hybrid finance space.
– Olivier Dang, business manager 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 CEO. Based in Switzerland, Laser Digital’s investments focus on DeFi infrastructure, centralized finance (CeFi), web3 and blockchain.
The investment comes as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issued guidelines for crypto exposures in December 2022, with bank-prescribed risk weights for tokenized assets to be traded at 1:1 par with their analog counterparts. . The guidelines for banks come into force on January 1, 2025.
With $300 trillion in credit securities outstanding and multiples of those in the loan, derivatives and equity markets, the new guidelines portend a major wave of tokenization of financial and real assets.
Currently in beta, the Infinity mainnet is expected to launch by the end of Q2 2023.