Nasdaq’s venture arm has invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, as part of the electronic bourse’s expansion into tokenized assets. The announcement was made on Thursday by the exchange operator.
As part of the deal, Kraken will offer tokenized versions of Nasdaq-listed stocks on its platform. The investment builds upon an existing partnership between Nasdaq and Payward announced in March.
People familiar with the matter reported to Bloomberg that the investment valued Kraken’s parent company at $21 billion. Nasdaq did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication.
This development follows Nasdaq's plans shared a month prior to acquire Level Markets as part of a broader push into "always-on" markets, following a tokenization proposal filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission a year ago.
Kraken also announced a partnership earlier in the month with the London Stock Exchange to launch 24/5 trading access for tokenized stocks tracking leading UK equity products beginning in 2027. Additionally, Deutsche Börse invested $200 million in Payward in April to expand its own offerings of blockchain-based securities and tokenized products.
Data compiled by RWA.xyz shows that the distributed value of tokenized stocks currently exceeds $2.9 billion, marking a 7.4% increase over the past month.
