According to CoinMeta, Japan has seen a new addition to the crypto asset exchange industry after nearly four years, with Laser Digital Japan under Nomura Holdings completing its registration on August 21st. Initially, the company is not targeting retail traders but plans to provide liquidity for licensed crypto service providers in Japan first, before moving on to institutional investors. The article points out that this reflects a shift in the Japanese crypto market from competition among single exchanges towards a more traditional financial division of labor, with different institutions taking on roles such as customer onboarding, liquidity provision, transaction execution, custody, asset management, stablecoins, and settlement networks. As Japan moves to align crypto asset trading regulations with the Financial Products Trading Law framework and tax reforms aim to reduce the tax gap between crypto assets and stocks, the licenses, capital, customer networks, and risk management capabilities of traditional financial institutions will become more important in the next phase of competition.