Nasdaq invests $100 million in Kraken parent Payward at $21 billion valuation

Nasdaq has agreed to invest $100 million in Kraken parent Payward as the two companies expand their work on tokenized equities, market surveillance and blockchain-based settlement infrastructure.

Nasdaq said Thursday that its strategic investment arm, Nasdaq Ventures, had agreed to make the investment as part of an expanded relationship with Payward. The deal values the privately held company at $21 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The companies are working toward a second-quarter 2027 launch for Nasdaq Equity Tokens, or NETs, while Payward will deploy Nasdaq’s market surveillance technology across trading venues covering crypto, equities, tokenized equities, futures and options.

The investment builds on a partnership announced in March, when Nasdaq and Payward began developing infrastructure designed to connect regulated equity markets with blockchain networks through Payward’s xStocks ecosystem.

Nasdaq investment values Payward at $21 billion

Nasdaq Ventures invests in technology and market infrastructure that the exchange operator sees as relevant to the development of global capital markets. Its $100 million Payward investment gives the relationship a financial component alongside the companies’ existing technology work.

The reported $21 billion valuation is slightly above the $20 billion level Payward secured during an $800 million financing completed before its confidential initial public offering filing. As crypto.news previously reported, Payward’s planned IPO has since been pushed back until at least the second quarter of 2027.

Payward confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2025. The company has not publicly disclosed a proposed ticker, share price, number of shares or exchange for a potential listing.

Its latest financial results showed adjusted revenue of $508 million for the second quarter, up 17% from a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA fell to $23 million from $80 million, while total platform transaction volume declined 18% to $310 billion.

Payward ended the quarter with 6.6 million funded accounts and $40 billion in assets on its platforms. Asset-based and other revenue represented 60% of total revenue, compared with 55% a year earlier, according to the company’s second-quarter results.

Nasdaq Equity Tokens target Q2 2027 launch

Nasdaq and Payward expect NETs to launch in the second quarter of 2027, advancing a project first announced earlier this year.

The initial partnership called for an equities transformation gateway connecting Nasdaq’s regulated market infrastructure with Payward’s xStocks system. Under the design, tokenized equities could move between permissioned financial markets and supported blockchain networks in eligible jurisdictions while retaining the rights attached to the underlying securities.

Nasdaq’s model is centered on issuer-sponsored tokens, with the company seeking to preserve issuer control, governance rights and existing market protections when shares are represented on blockchain infrastructure.

Payward’s xStocks framework provides the blockchain component of the planned system. When the partnership was announced in March, xStocks had recorded more than $25 billion in transaction volume, including over $4 billion settled onchain, and had more than 85,000 unique holders.

The platform has continued expanding since then. Payward partnered with GTN in July to take xStocks beyond U.S. equities, starting with Hong Kong-listed shares before planned expansion into markets including the UK, Europe and South Korea, subject to local regulatory approvals. At that point, xStocks had passed 500 tokenized assets and $37 billion in transaction volume.

Nasdaq said the next phase of its Payward partnership will focus on the global distribution, trading and post-trade systems needed to support NETs.

“More than $2 trillion of stock trades run through the U.S. clearing system every day,” Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi said.

Sethi said buys and sells in the U.S. system net down by roughly 98%, leaving clearing houses to hold between $10 billion and $20 billion of collateral while trades await settlement. The move from two-day to one-day settlement in 2024 released $3 billion, he added.

“Onchain settlement removes the wait,” Sethi said. “The next phase of the collaboration is planned to advance Nasdaq Equity Tokens onto rails that do not close, with shareholder rights intact.”

Payward will use Nasdaq surveillance across trading venues

The expanded agreement gives Nasdaq another role within Payward’s trading infrastructure through its market surveillance technology.

Payward plans to deploy the system across crypto, conventional equities, tokenized equities, futures and options. Nasdaq said the technology will support market integrity and investor confidence as Payward operates across more asset classes.

Payward has spent much of 2026 expanding beyond its core spot crypto exchange business. The company completed its acquisition of Bitnomial in May, giving Kraken access to a regulated U.S. derivatives structure that includes a Futures Commission Merchant, Designated Contract Market and Derivatives Clearing Organization.

The transaction followed an agreement to buy Bitnomial for up to $550 million in cash and stock. The completed Bitnomial acquisition gave Payward control of the three Commodity Futures Trading Commission registrations needed to operate trading, brokerage and clearing services within the same group.

Kraken has separately expanded the uses available for xStocks. Eligible clients outside the United States can use selected tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds as collateral for leveraged trades, allowing qualifying users to maintain tokenized equity exposure while supporting futures or margin positions.

Payward has acquired Backed Finance, the company behind the issuance infrastructure used for xStocks, while its wider portfolio now includes Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout and CF Benchmarks.

Nasdaq and Payward began tokenization work in March

The relationship between the companies started in March with plans to create a gateway between regulated equity markets and permissionless blockchain networks.

Under that framework, Payward Services was set to provide know-your-customer and anti-money laundering onboarding for users accessing Nasdaq Equity Tokens through its platform in eligible jurisdictions. Payward’s infrastructure was expected to serve as an initial settlement layer for NET transactions where the company held the necessary registrations or approvals.

Nasdaq initially said its equity token design and related distributed-ledger services would begin operating in the first half of 2027. The latest announcement narrows the expected NET launch to the second quarter.

The work comes as xStocks develops infrastructure intended to move tokenized equities beyond simple spot trading. In March, the platform introduced xChange, an onchain execution layer supporting more than 70 tokenized equities across Ethereum and Solana. At launch, the system had recorded $3.5 billion in onchain volume and $25 billion in overall trading volume.

Each supported xStock was backed 1:1 by an underlying security held in custody, while xChange used atomic settlement so a trade either completed at its quoted terms or did not execute.

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said the expanded relationship with Payward was based on the exchange operator’s view that the company could play a role in building infrastructure for capital and assets to move across financial systems.

“This partnership advances our work on Nasdaq Equity Tokens and helps build a more connected financial system while preserving the trust, transparency and integrity that underpin capital formation,” Cohen said.