Nomura Securities
Nomura Securities and BOOSTRY said Nomura Research Institute had issued Japan's first bonds using blockchain technology, with the bond register kept on BOOSTRY's ibet platform and Nomura Securities underwriting the digital bond.
- Status
- Quiet
- Announced
- (announcement)
- Stage
- Pilot
- Chain or network
- ibet, then ibet for Fin (BOOSTRY-led consortium chain)
- Participants
- Nomura Research Institute, BOOSTRY, Nomura Trust and Banking, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
- Next review
Scorecard
As of the review on . Changes since the previous review are marked. How pilots are scored
| Ledger | Private EVM network |
|---|---|
| Settlement | Off-ledger cash |
| Access | Whitelisted institutions or investors |
| Legal standing | Token is the legal record |
| Scale | Repeat |
Decisions
Expanded
NRI issued a 3 billion yen five-year digital bond on ibet for Fin, underwritten by Nomura Securities, the first digital bond in Japan settled by DvP, using ibet for Fin smart contracts and SMBC bank accounts, on T+1.
Source: nomuraholdings.com
Review history
Live Pilot
NRI issued a 25 million yen digital asset bond directly to investors and a 5 million yen digital bond underwritten by Nomura Securities, both three-month, with the register on ibet.
Evidence: nomuraholdings.com
Live Pilot
The 3 billion yen bond added DvP: ibet for Fin smart contracts reconcile token transfers against remittances between ordinary SMBC accounts. Cash still moves off the ledger, so settlement stays offchain. A separate test minted DCJPY in a test environment to show digital currency settlement.
Evidence: nomuraholdings.com
Quiet Pilot
No NRI digital bond underwritten by Nomura Securities has been announced since March 2025. Searched nomuraholdings.com, nri.com and boostry.co.jp. The March 2025 bond is outstanding until 2030.
Evidence: nomuraholdings.com, nomuraholdings.com
What was announced
On 30 March 2020 Nomura Securities and BOOSTRY, a joint venture of Nomura Holdings and Nomura Research Institute (NRI), said they had supported NRI in issuing two bonds that day, which they called the first bond offering using blockchain technology by a Japanese issuer. NRI sold a 25 million yen “digital asset bond”, which gives investors café points instead of interest payments, directly to investors through a smartphone app; Nomura Securities underwrote a 5 million yen “digital bond”. Both had three-month terms. Nomura Trust and Banking was fiscal agent and BOOSTRY kept the bond register on its ibet platform.
How it works
The bond register is kept on ibet, now ibet for Fin, a consortium chain led by BOOSTRY whose node client is forked from GoQuorum with QBFT consensus, so ledger is private-evm. Digital bonds are outside the Japan Securities Depository Center’s book-entry system and the ibet record is the register, so legal is native. Investors buy through Nomura Securities, so access is whitelisted. In 2025 DvP was achieved by matching token transfers on ibet for Fin against remittances between ordinary bank accounts at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), so the cash leg is still offchain.
Record so far
On 14 March 2025 NRI, Nomura Securities, BOOSTRY and SMBC issued NRI’s 15th unsecured bond: 3 billion yen, five years, at 1.483%, according to Nomura’s Japanese release. Nomura Securities was underwriter and digital structuring agent, and SMBC fiscal agent, register administrator and settlement bank. The partners said it was the first digital bond in Japan settled by DvP and settled on T+1, the shortest period for a new domestic corporate bond. Separately, DeCurret DCP minted DCJPY in a test environment to show that tokenised deposits could settle digital bond trades. NRI and Nomura said public security token issuance in Japan had passed 150 billion yen. No NRI digital bond has been announced since.
For Ethereum
ibet for Fin is an EVM chain with a closed consortium of validators. The 2025 bond used smart contracts on it for DvP while leaving the cash in bank accounts. BOOSTRY publishes ibet-WST, a protocol for settling ibet tokens against assets on EVM networks such as Ethereum.
What to watch
A new NRI digital bond, or settlement in DCJPY or a stablecoin on the ledger, which would move settlement.