Nasdaq's venture capital arm is investing $100 million in Kraken parent Payward, partnering with the crypto firm to launch tokenized equities in 2027 and build a market infrastructure and surveillance technology to support them.
The deal expands on a previously announced partnership between Nasdaq and Payward to test Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs). In this new phase, the companies will develop an infrastructure to distribute and trade tokenized stocks, which is the issue of digital representations of publicly traded securities, other assets or form of value on a blockchain network, Nasdaq said Thursday morning.
The partners expect to launch their tokenized equities in the second quarter of 2027. Holders of tokenized assets don't have outright ownership of the assets themselves.
Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market-surveillance technology across its trading venues, including crypto and tokenized equities, as the Kraken exchange looks beyond cryptocurrencies to move into stocks, derivatives and other traditional financial products in an attempt to turn its crypto exchange into a broader, multi-asset trading platform.
The investment brings the crypto company's valuation to $21 billion, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the story Thursday.
"The next era of market evolution will be defined by how efficiently and seamlessly capital and assets move across the financial system with durable liquidity," Nasdaq president Tal Cohen said in a statement. "Expanding our relationship with Payward reflects our conviction that the company can play an important role in building the infrastructure that supports this evolution. 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."
The investment reflects a growing push by Wall Street to make tokenized securities part of the mainstream market, with Nasdaq positioning itself for a stock market where shares can exist on blockchain networks alongside traditional financial infrastructure. In building that parallel system with Payward, Nasdaq could eventually make trading and settlement faster and allow markets to operate around the clock.
The latest deal comes amid a spat between the CEOs of Robinhood and AMC, focused on the brokerage offering tokenized versions of AMC shares without AMC's involvement — offering investors a glimpse of the bigger debate around what exactly a "tokenized stock" represents and what rights its holder gets.
While AMC says it creates a synthetic market that gives investors economic exposure without actual shareholder rights, Robinhood defended its position on CNBC's "Squawk Box" Wednesday, saying it and others are free to create and offer financial products that reference public stocks.
