Important points
- Mitsui & Co., Ltd. offers Japan’s first digital securities for fractional ownership of aircraft and ships through its Alterna platform.
- Japan’s digital securities market more than doubled in 2025 due to expansion of use cases and the entry of institutional investors.
According to a report in the Nikkei Shimbun, major Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co. plans to offer Japan’s first digital securities for aircraft and ships.
The product will be issued through Mitsui & Co. Digital Asset Management, which is already leading Japan in real estate tokenization through its investment platform Alterna.
The move will allow retail investors to gain partial exposure to capital-intensive assets such as airplanes and cargo ships with a minimum investment of around 100,000 yen ($630).
Japan aims to double shipbuilding production by 2035, and aircraft demand is expected to more than double by 2043.
Mitsui & Co.’s goal is to quadruple its digital securities sales to 100 billion yen by 2030. The company’s product roadmap also includes future offerings of lower volatility assets such as corporate bonds, as well as more real estate products. The company also plans to deploy AI tools to reduce product development time from up to 12 months to just 1-2 months.
According to the report, Japan’s digital securities market is accelerating, with issuance amount expected to reach 152.9 billion yen in 2025, more than double the 2024 level.
Major securities firms such as Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities and platforms such as Osaka Digital Exchange already offer digital securities and are expanding access through secondary and peer-to-peer markets.
