Laser Digital Takes Single-Digit Million Stake in ZIGChain for Gulf Private Credit

Laser Digital, Nomura Group’s digital assets subsidiary, has made a strategic investment in ZIGChain, a UAE-based Layer 1 blockchain, with the partnership targeting private credit markets across the Gulf States. The investment is understood to sit in the single-digit millions, with the exact figure undisclosed. ZIGChain also works with Apex Group, the cryptocurrency-friendly fund servicing firm, and is co-founded by Abdul Rafay Gadit, who described the collaboration as producing one of the largest onchain products the Gulf region has seen.

The commercial logic centres on a structural gap in Middle Eastern private credit: smaller borrowers cannot access conventional bank financing, while capital holders lack visibility into those opportunities and face high minimums and fees through existing large funds. ZIGChain’s pipeline includes institutional onchain vault products with Sharia-compliant structures, and Laser Digital’s role is explicitly framed as providing risk framework design and governance rather than simply capital.

The partnership carries some institutional-signalling weight given Nomura’s position. In February 2026, Nomura tightened risk limits at Laser Digital following crypto-related losses that affected quarterly profit, a move read by the market as retrenchment. Laser Digital chief executive Jez Mohideen has characterised the ZIGChain move as consistent with a more selective, standards-driven approach to onchain finance, citing execution risk as a consistently underestimated variable in the category. The Dubai co-location of both firms, whose offices are roughly one kilometre apart, appears to have been a practical accelerant to the deal.