Japan’s Largest Brokerage Nomura Explores Sale of Crypto Unit Laser Digital
According to Bloomberg, Japan’s Nomura Holdings is exploring a potential sale of its crypto unit Laser Digital and has held talks with prospective buyers, including Marex Group, which is evaluating a deal. No final decision has been made, and Nomura may retain the business. Losses at Laser Digital amid crypto market volatility pushed Nomura’s European operations into a quarterly loss, prompting tighter risk controls. Founded in 2022, Laser Digital provides institutional crypto trading, asset management and venture investment services. The firm recently obtained a crypto exchange services license in Japan and received conditional approval for a US national trust bank charter in May.
Fun AI meet up in Shinjuku tonight.
My Grok Bots found this via Luma.
I’m happy I attended because I met some really nice people tonight.
@NextAILeaders@kosuke_eth
Blast will be shutting down.
We launched Blast with the goal of building a self-sustaining chain for users and developers. Unfortunately, the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense: the ongoing costs of maintaining Blast exceed the revenue generated by the L2, and we do not see a credible path to making the chain economically sustainable.
As a result, we've made the difficult decision to wind Blast down.
We're sorry to the users and developers who believed in Blast, built on it, and supported the ecosystem. Our priority now is making the shutdown as smooth and safe as possible.
We're asking all users to withdraw their assets from Blast to Ethereum mainnet, including any balances held in the Blast PWA.
To make this easier, we will be reducing the withdrawal delay to 24 hours.
As part of the shutdown process, we'll first begin withdrawing Blast's Lido assets. This process is expected to take approximately one week. During this period, withdrawals will temporarily be unavailable, even after the withdrawal delay is reduced to 24 hours.
Once that process is complete, withdrawals will resume with the new 24-hour delay.
Users will have until October 26, 2026 to withdraw through the normal Blast interface.
After October 26, assets will remain withdrawable, but users will need to interact directly with the Blast bridge contracts on Ethereum L1. We'll publish detailed instructions before then.
We strongly encourage everyone to withdraw their assets to Ethereum mainnet before October 26.
A new partnership for Japan’s fintech ecosystem, announced at Pragma Tokyo 🇯🇵
@hinzaasif of @AWAJ_Official and @kosuke_eth of @suzupay_fi are teaming up through AWAJ Ventures to expand SuzuPay, strengthen its path to market, and build the next wave of fintech products for Japan.
Pragma Tokyo is finally here! 🔥 I'm super excited to speak today on behalf of SuzuPay at @ETHGlobal's event in Toranomon Hills. 🇯🇵
Looking forward to discussing the next phase of Ethereum and the evolution of onchain finance. If you're around, come say hi! 🙌
#PragmaTokyo
Pragma Tokyo begins tomorrow 🇯🇵
A full day focused on Ethereum’s next phase and the evolution of onchain finance.
Hear from leaders at @ethereumfndn, @bitFlyer, @Rakuten_Wallet, @StartaleGroup, @Rakuten_Wallet, and more.
Sep 26 • Toranomon Hills
🎟️ https://t.co/CFuNJFn5YZ