DeFimans, SMBC Nikko Securities, NIPPON STEEL SOLUTION, Perplexity AI, and 2 others sign basic agreement for joint demonstration experiment on cross-market arbitrage trading, including existing financial markets

DeFimans Inc. (Location: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representatives: Nobushi Ono, Taishi Sato, hereinafter "DeFimans") is pleased to announce that it has signed a basic agreement (MoU) with SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Director, President & CEO: Hideo Yoshioka), NIPPON STEEL SOLUTION CORPORATION (Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director, President & CEO: Kazuhiko Tamaki, Securities Code 2327), Perplexity AI, Inc. (California, USA, CEO: Aravind Srinivas), and ANDLAW FZCO (United Arab Emirates, CEO: Gouki Kato) to conduct a verification for cross-market transaction optimization in traditional financial markets, off-chain, and on-chain markets through collaboration among multiple companies.

Purpose of this Joint Demonstration Experiment

This joint demonstration experiment aims to jointly explore potential future business opportunities through the following initiatives:

Collection and structuring of data related to optimal execution prices and trading routes

Verification of the feasibility of smooth trading execution that is not bound by individual chains or markets

Price discovery and price optimization for Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs

Exploration of arbitrage opportunities for derivatives trading associated with the above ETFs and optimization of operations

Consideration of deployability to manufacturing industries, etc., through the utilization of Tokenized Assets

Quantitative evaluation of profitability, operational feasibility, and market characteristics

Furthermore, discussions are underway to continue collaboration, including the introduction into workflows, even after the conclusion of this joint demonstration experiment.

Roles of Each Participating Company

In this joint demonstration experiment, each company will leverage its specialized knowledge and undertake the following roles:

SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.: Sharing expertise on trade execution and implementation, proposing improvements to user experience, data output formats, and operational workflows, and evaluating effectiveness and potential market impact.

NIPPON STEEL SOLUTION CORPORATION: Providing trading platforms and related algorithms, sharing expertise in high-frequency trading, low-latency order execution, and event-driven trading systems.

Perplexity AI, Inc.: Providing technical support for advanced AI utilization, including LLM aggregation functions, and continuously optimizing AI functions for service deployment, considering compliance with Japanese regulations and systems.

ANDLAW FZCO: Designing trading routes, providing execution infrastructure and technical expertise, designing and quantitatively analyzing trading scenarios such as event-driven trading, and handling and coordinating related cryptocurrency technical matters.

DeFimans Inc.: Overall design, coordination, and progress management of the PoC, sharing expertise in cryptocurrency trading, and providing advisory support for AI technology utilization.

Expected Outcomes

Through this joint demonstration experiment, we will visualize arbitrage opportunities not only in existing cryptocurrencies but also in derivatives trading referencing stablecoins, Tokenized Assets centered on commodities, and Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. In the future, we aim to introduce this to multinational corporations through cost reduction in repo transactions and price optimization associated with cross-market operations.

From right, Mr. Adachi of ANDLAW, Mr. Jerry Ma, Vice President of Global Affairs and Deputy CTO of Perplexity, Mr. Kato of ANDLAW, Mr. Dmitry Shevelenko, CBO of Perplexity, Mr. Sato of DeFimans, Ms. June Morita, Head of APAC of Perplexity

<About Participating Companies in the Joint Demonstration Experiment>

SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

Location: 1-5-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo

Director, President & CEO: Hideo Yoshioka

NIPPON STEEL SOLUTION CORPORATION

Location: Toranomon Hills Business Tower, 1-17-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Representative Director, President & CEO: Kazuhiko Tamaki

Perplexity AI, Inc.

Location: 115 Sansome St, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA

CBO: Dmitry Shevelenko

ANDLAW FZCO

Location: Unit 001-24532, IFZA Business Park, Dubai Digital Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

General Manager, Management / Executive Office: Gouki Kato

DeFimans Inc.

Location: Toto Building 9F, 5-1-4 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Representatives: Nobushi Ono, Taishi Sato

Comments from Each Company

Mr. Daisuke Isono, General Manager, DeFi Technology Department, SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

It is anticipated that in the coming years, all assets in the financial industry will be integrated on-chain, forming a large-scale RWA market. In this period of significant transformation in financial markets, we believe it is an important mission for financial intermediaries to contribute to the creation of price discovery functions in new markets. We recognize this project as a meaningful challenge with great potential for this mission, and we intend to work on it by pooling the cross-industry expertise of each company.

Mr. Hiroshi Hasegawa, General Manager, Financial Business Engineering Division, Financial Solutions Business Unit, NIPPON STEEL SOLUTION CORPORATION

We are greatly honored to be at the forefront of financial innovation by joining forces with partners who are challenging advanced initiatives.

As digital assets and RWA trading expand, the importance of mechanisms that seamlessly connect on-chain and off-chain is increasing daily. In increasingly diversified and complex financial markets, the realization of a fair and efficient trading environment is an indispensable challenge for future market development. We will continue to strive to contribute to the development of the digital asset market during this period of major transformation in financial markets by leveraging the technological capabilities and track record in algorithm development cultivated through the development of infrastructure systems for the securities market.

Mr. Dmitry Shevelenko, CBO, Perplexity AI, Inc.

We are deeply honored to participate in this initiative with partner companies who possess deep knowledge of financial markets, systems, and digital asset infrastructure. Finance is an extremely important sector for Perplexity, and by providing our AI-powered information aggregation capabilities, we aim to support market participants in interpreting public information more accurately and look forward to contributing to the development of more practical and reliable infrastructure for the future of finance.

Mr. Gouki Kato, CEO, ANDLAW FZCO

We are greatly encouraged to be able to launch this initiative with partners who represent their respective fields.

We believe that by combining the knowledge from fields such as finance, systems, AI, and business development with the technological foundation we have built in the cross-chain and cross-market domain, we can construct a more practical execution infrastructure.

Mr. Taishi Sato, Representative Director, DeFimans Inc.

We are delighted to be able to undertake this initiative with such passionate partners. While the boundaries between existing financial markets and on-chain and off-chain are blurring, it is difficult to say that transactions actively conducted in existing financial markets, such as derivatives trading of commodities and ETFs, are being executed cross-market and optimally. I believe that "the essence of finance is arbitrage," and we will strive to produce results that appropriately capture the distortions arising from the development of new markets and enjoy the opportunities that arise from them.

About DeFimans Inc.

DeFimans Inc. is a professional firm that handles projects on a global scale. Focusing on supporting new businesses and web3 businesses in diverse domestic and international industries, primarily in the finance, IT, and entertainment sectors, we provide end-to-end support from strategy formulation to execution support. We also provide planning and strategic development for stablecoins, as well as practical support for their issuance.

Representatives: Nobushi Ono, Taishi Sato

Location: Toto Building 9F, 5-1-4 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Established: July 2022

Business Activities: Consulting support for tokenomics, DeFi, GameFi/blockchain games, overseas expansion, business strategy, new business development, blockchain social implementation, NFTs, dApps, DAOs, etc.; hands-on support for fundraising/capital policy, marketing, translation, etc.; operation of Messari JAPAN

Official Website: https://defimans.com/

X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/DeFimans

Medium: https://medium.com/@DeFimans

General Inquiries: [email protected]