Nomura to tighten risk controls at Laser Digital after crypto-related losses

Nomura Holdings said it will tighten risk controls at Laser Digital, its crypto unit, after losses in the business contributed to the company's 9.7% decline in fiscal third-quarter profit, Bloomberg reported.

During an earnings briefing on Friday, Nomura CEO Hiroyuki Moriuchi said the company implemented stricter position management to reduce risk exposure and limit earnings fluctuations from crypto market swings.

On Oct. 10, four days after bitcoin hit a record high of over $126,200, the crypto market suffered a flash crash that led to more than $19 billion of leveraged positions being wiped out in the biggest deleveraging event in the industry’s history. Bitcoin ended the year around $87,000, about 31% below its October peak, and the total crypto market capitalization slid from roughly $4.3 trillion to just more than $3 trillion by year-end, according to Coingecko data.

“There is a vague sense of unease about the overall market direction, and that seems to have combined with the surprise on the crypto front to set off selling,” said Hideyasu Ban, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, adding it is likely only a short-term market reaction.

Nomura’s net income fell to $590 million in the three months ended Dec. 31, the holdings firm said on Friday.

Just three days before Moriouchi announced scaling back his firm’s crypto risk, Laser Digital said its Americas division filed a de novo application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank, joining several crypto companies looking to offer asset management services for the digital assets industry.