Bitcoin’s recent evolution has been below expectations, as evidenced by the Bitcoin price USD chart. However, if Bitcoin’s historical data has taught us anything is that the flagship crypto can bounce back at any moment, so there’s no reason to lose hope or jump to wild conclusions based on short-term trends. Price movements in the crypto market, whether upwards or downwards, are notoriously fleeting and suffer the influence of a wide range of factors.
One of the events that seem to have stirred the crypto pot lately and led to a surprisingly positive development in the market comes from Nomura, Japan’s leading investment bank. On September 19, Laser Digital, a subsidiary of the financial services giant that provides digital asset services, announced the launching of a Bitcoin Adoption Fund that will provide exposure to Bitcoin for institutional investors. As expected, the announcement was met with a positive response in the market and was accompanied by a wave of optimism from the crypto community.
Japan is making one step forward toward crypto adoption
As Japan’s leading securities and investment banking company, Nomura provides a wide range of financial services for individual investors and corporate clients alike. The service provider is based in Tokyo and has regional headquarters in Hong Kong, London, and New York, and holds over $500 billion in assets.
Therefore, the company’s decision to expand into the cryptocurrency space is bound to make strong waves in the market. This also represents a huge step forward for the institutional adoption of crypto in Japan and could potentially encourage more businesses and organizations to move in the same direction.
Laser Digital, the digital asset business backed by the financial giant, will be in charge of providing this new service with the support of Komainu, a regulated custody provider founded by Nomura, Coinshares and tech firm Ledger, that will ensure secure and compliant custody services for digital asset investments.
The newly launched Bitcoin Adoption Fund is included with the Laser Digital Funds SPC, a Segregated Portfolio Company which has been registered as a mutual fund with the Cayman Islands Regulatory Authority. The fund will provide investors with long-only exposure to Bitcoin, which means traders and investors will have the opportunity to earn a profit based on the price appreciation of long-term trades.
On the occasion, Sebastien Guglietta, head of Asset Management at Laser Digital, stated that technology plays a key role in driving economic growth at the global level and is supporting the transition of financial services from analog to digital. She added that Bitcoin is one of the factors that facilitates this ongoing transition, and therefore the introduction of the Bitcoin Adoption Fund will help investors take advantage of this growing trend.
It’s also worth mentioning that even though the Bitcoin Adoption Fund is the first of its kind to be launched by Nomura, this is not the first time they’ve ventured into the digital assets space. In September 2022, the company created a digital asset venture capital arm that would allow them to stay ahead of the curve in terms of digital innovation. This was followed by a new development in August 2023 when Laser Digital secured a license from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), enabling them to run their operations in the country.
Impact on Bitcoin
As anticipated, the news had a positive impact on the original cryptocurrency, leading to a sudden price appreciation that pushed the asset above the $27,000 threshold. According to a Santiment report, BTC experienced a surge in the chars immediately after the announcement was made. Bitcoin couldn’t sustain the appreciation trend for too long and a slight price decline followed soon after, causing the asset to drop below $27,000 once again. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading for $ 26,678.
Even though Bitcoin was unable to surpass its short and long-moving averages, there are still positives to focus on. Despite the short-lived spike, the crypto leader remains above the neutral line which indicates potential for growth and a potential bullish outlook.
As for investors’ sentiment, data provided by Coinglass shows a positive funding rate for Bitcoin, suggesting that traders and investors were expecting the price appreciation to continue and decided to hold long positions as a result.
This might not have been the huge leap in price that some crypto enthusiasts were hoping for, but it was a clear indication that market sentiment is improving and people haven’t lost their hope and trust in Bitcoin’s potential.
Institutional enthusiasm is increasing
Another aspect worth pointing out is the timing of the launch. The Bitcoin Adoption Fund comes at a time when the subject of crypto investment products and services is attracting a lot of interest from both major financial companies such as Nomura and Laser Digital and regulatory bodies from all across the world.
In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission has already approved two Bitcoin futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The same cannot be said about Bitcoin spot ETFs unfortunately. Although several established financial providers have field applications for spot Bitcoin ETFs, the SEC has yet to come to a decision in this respect.
Looking at other countries’ approaches to the regularization of crypto products, both Canada and Europe have made considerable progress in this area, giving the green light for several Bitcoin investment products over the past few years.
If the launching of the Bitcoin Adoption Fund by Laser Digital in Japan is any indication of what might happen on the crypto front in the future, we can hope to see more similar developments taking place in countries around the world.
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