Japan is on track to sanction its inaugural cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds by 2028, per a Nikkei Asia disclosure. This advancement signals a formal embrace of crypto within mainstream Japanese finance.
Key to this shift is an upcoming revision by the Financial Services Agency, which will permit cryptocurrencies to serve as the base asset for ETFs. Stricter investor protection protocols will be implemented concurrently.
The report suggests that Nomura Holdings and SBI Holdings will be the front-runners, introducing the pioneering crypto ETFs for listing in Tokyo. Their involvement underscores the serious institutional interest in this new product class.
The model for this initiative is clearly the successful adoption in the US market. There, spot Bitcoin ETFs have accumulated $115.8 billion, representing a substantial percentage of Bitcoin’s total market cap.
Institutional pathways to Bitcoin and other digital assets were broadened by the US ETF launches. They have drawn involvement from a wide spectrum of managed funds, including those of prominent universities like Harvard.
