Japan’s First Crypto Fund with ¥300 Million Capital

This month Fisco, a Japanese financial information provider is going to launch a crypto fund with capitalization of 300 million yen, which is about 2,6 million U.S. for investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Fisco is a research and information prover in Japan, covering stocks, foreign exchanges, bonds and commodities within and beyond the country. It is going to open an investment fund specific to cryptocurrencies. Nikkei reported, that the information provider will invest its own money aside from raising capital from other two unnamed publicly-listed FinTech companies with a launch target of over 300 million yen (approx. $2.66 million).

Before the end of this month it is set to launch investments in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The annual return from investments is targeted at 20% by Fisco.

Further, the fund will also seek to make profits through arbitrage opportunities by looking into price differentials of cryptocurrencies among domestic and foreign exchanges.

Fisco has been an early mover in researching and adopting cryptocurrencies. The information provider’s cryptocurrency unit issued three-year debt worth 200 bitcoins earlier in August 2017, with a cost of $800,000 to another firm. Fisco’s chief product officer Masayuki Tashiro revealed the intent of the cryptocurrency debt sale was to explore the bitcoin bonds’ potential as a viable fundraising tool. The deal was the first of its kind in Japan. It happened after April’s legislation recognized bitcoin as a legal way of payment.

Tashiro said at the time:

“We expect that bitcoin will eventually be recognized as a financial product.”

In Japan, Fisco isn’t the only company that has bullish expectations for bitcoin. Japan’s largest financial institution MUFG, is going to launch a service to secure bitcoin adopters against losses suffered by cryptocurrency exchanges. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust has already applied for relevant patents and is geared for a tentative launch in April 2018, after Japan’s financial regulator recognizes bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as financial assets akin to securities and real estate that can be placed and secured in a trust.