Perplexity, Futaba Lab, SBI Group's DeFimans, NIPPON STEEL SOLUTIONS, and SMBC Nikko Securities Sign Basic Agreement for Joint Verification of Next-Generation Digital Asset Execution Platform

Perplexity AI, Inc. (Headquarters: USA, Co-founder / CEO: Aravind Srinivas, hereinafter "the Company") has signed a basic agreement (MoU) for joint verification of a next-generation execution platform in the digital asset domain with ANDLAW FZCO (Headquarters: UAE, CEO: Goki Kato, hereinafter "ANDLAW"), an overseas business subsidiary of the Futaba Lab Group, with Futaba Lab Co., Ltd. as its parent company; SBI Group's DeFimans Co., Ltd. (Location: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Representatives: Nobushi Ono, Taishi Sato, hereinafter "DeFimans"); NIPPON STEEL SOLUTIONS CORPORATION (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Kazuhiko Tamaoki, hereinafter "NSSOL"); and SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Director, President & CEO: Shuji Yoshioka, hereinafter "SMBC Nikko Securities"). The Company announces the commencement of a joint verification (hereinafter "this PoC") aimed at optimizing transactions across traditional financial markets, on-chain, and off-chain markets.

This initiative aims to realize a next-generation transaction execution platform that can respond to the increasingly complex market environment due to the advancement of financial product tokenization.

Background and Objectives

The tokenization of financial products is transitioning from the experimental/demonstration phase to the full-scale social implementation phase. Globally, the issuance and circulation volume of stablecoins has reached $300 billion, and the on-chain RWA (Real World Assets) market excluding stablecoins exceeds $30 billion, indicating a rapid transition of stages.

While diverse products and markets beyond crypto assets are expanding, each market is fragmented in terms of liquidity, price formation, connection methods, and execution environments. The development of infrastructure for efficiently evaluating and executing trading opportunities across multiple markets remains limited.

Furthermore, it is anticipated that the connection between traditional financial markets and digital asset markets, including crypto asset ETFs, stablecoins, tokenized securities, commodities, and FX, will further advance. This increases the importance of next-generation transaction execution infrastructure that spans both on-chain and off-chain.

Therefore, this PoC will proceed with joint verification towards building a practical transaction execution infrastructure for institutional investors and financial institutions through the aggregation and integration of price information from multiple markets, strategy verification across spot and derivatives, and AI-driven transaction analysis, hypothesis generation, and agent construction.

Main Contents of Joint Verification in This Initiative

This initiative will primarily proceed with joint verification on the following themes:

Data Integration

Acquisition and integration of price information across multiple markets

Strategy Design and Analysis

Verification of strategies across spot and derivatives

Generation and verification support of trading hypotheses based on public information

AI Utilization

Use of LLM aggregators and construction of a verification platform by Perplexity Computer

Platform Development

Technical verification of an execution platform for institutional investors and financial institutions

Through this, we will advance the examination of a technical infrastructure that makes it easier to select appropriate counterparties and transaction conditions across multiple markets, aiming to build an infrastructure that can cope with the future sophistication and diversification of the market.

Features of This Initiative

The feature of this initiative is that it conducts joint verification from strategy design to implementation, verification, and market connection in a way that is not confined to a single market or single product. Traditionally, central exchanges, on-chain, cross-chain, spot, and derivatives have often been handled individually under different market structures and technical requirements, with limited cross-market integration.

This initiative aims to realize a next-generation execution platform that integrates price, liquidity, and market characteristics of multiple products, including spot and derivatives, by crossing central exchanges and on-chain, based on the execution platform with order processing track record of the Futaba Lab Group.

Future Outlook

We plan to proceed with technical verification and implementation considerations step-by-step, looking ahead to the production environment.

In the medium to long term, we aim to build a cross-market execution platform that looks beyond the digital asset market to the digitalization of a wider range of financial markets, including ETFs, stablecoins, tokenized securities, FX, and commodities.

The Company will continue to work on building next-generation infrastructure in the financial market, where digitalization is advancing with the use of AI, in collaboration with domestic and international partners.

Comments from Each Company

Dmitry Shevelenko, CBO of Perplexity AI, Inc.

"I am extremely honored to participate in this initiative with Futaba Lab and our partner companies who possess deep expertise in 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 contribute to the development of more practical and reliable infrastructure for the future of finance."

Goki Kato, Representative of Futaba Lab Group

"I am very encouraged to be able to start this initiative with partners who represent each field. By combining the technical foundation in cross-chain and cross-market areas that we have been working on with expertise in finance, systems, AI, and business development, we believe it will be possible to build a more practical execution infrastructure. Through this initiative, we will work to optimize transactions across multiple markets and "create the foundation for new finance."

Taishi Sato, Representative Director of DeFimans Co., Ltd.

"I am delighted to be able to work with such passionate partners on this initiative. While the boundaries between existing financial markets and on-chain/off-chain are blurring, it is difficult to say that transactions actively conducted in existing financial markets, such as commodity and ETF derivatives trading, are being executed efficiently and optimally across markets. I believe that "the essence of finance is arbitrage," and I 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."

Hiroshi Hasegawa, General Manager, Financial Business Engineering Department, Financial Solutions Business Division, NIPPON STEEL SOLUTIONS CORPORATION

"I am extremely honored to be at the forefront of financial innovation by joining forces with partners 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 diverse 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 contribute to the development of the digital asset market during this major transformation period of financial markets by leveraging our technical capabilities cultivated in developing infrastructure systems for the securities market and our track record in algorithm development."

Taizo Isono, Head of DeFi Technology Department, SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

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

Overview of Participating Companies in Joint Verification

Perplexity AI, Inc.

Representative: Co-founder / CEO Aravind Srinivas

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

Main Business Activities: Provision of AI search and answer engine, research support, development and provision of business support platform

Official Website: https://www.perplexity.ai/

Futaba Lab Group

Representative: President & CEO Goki Kato

Location: Aoyama Marutake Bldg 6F, 3-1-36 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Business Activities: Development and provision of digital asset execution platforms, price acquisition and integration across multiple markets, design and verification of execution strategies, planning and development of related products utilizing inter-chain linkage and interoperability

Official Website: https://www.futaba-lab.com/

DeFimans Co., Ltd.

Representatives: Nobushi Ono, Taishi Sato, Representative Directors

Location: Toto Bldg 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/

NIPPON STEEL SOLUTIONS CORPORATION

Representative: President & CEO Kazuhiko Tamaoki

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

Date Established: October 1, 1980

Business Activities: Management and system consultation; planning, design, development, construction, operation, maintenance, and management of information systems; development, manufacturing, sales, and leasing of software and hardware for information systems; IT-based outsourcing services and other various services

Official Website: https://www.nssol.nipponsteel.com/

SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

Representative: Director, President & CEO (Representative Director) Shuji Yoshioka

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

Business Activities: Type I Financial Instruments Business, Type II Financial Instruments Business, Investment Advisory and Agency Business, Investment Management Business, etc.

Official Website: https://www.smbcnikko.co.jp/