Nasdaq Backs Kraken Owner With $100M to Push Tokenized Equity Trading

Nasdaq Ventures has committed $100 million to Payward, the parent company behind crypto exchange Kraken, the stock exchange announced Thursday. The capital injection forms part of a broader strategic expansion between the two firms.

The deal builds on an existing partnership and includes two additional components: continued development of the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework and a new market surveillance agreement. Under the surveillance pact, Payward will deploy Nasdaq's monitoring technology across its trading platforms.

The NET framework is scheduled to go live with actual tokenized equities in the second quarter of 2027. The project aims to create foundational infrastructure allowing tokenized stocks to operate seamlessly across different market environments.

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 the announcement. He described the expanded relationship as reflecting confidence that Payward can help build the infrastructure supporting this transformation.

Payward Co-CEO Arjun Sethi highlighted the potential efficiency improvements tokenization could bring to equity markets. More than $2 trillion of stock trades flow through the U.S. clearing system daily, with trades netting down by roughly 98 percent. Clearinghouses hold between $10 billion and $20 billion of collateral against the remaining exposure while waiting a day for settlement.

When the industry shortened settlement from two days to one in 2024, it freed up $3 billion in capital. Moving to on-chain settlement would eliminate the waiting period entirely.

The next phase of the collaboration is planned to advance Nasdaq Equity Tokens onto rails that do not close, with shareholder rights intact

Sethi explained.

The companies first announced their tokenization partnership in March. That initial collaboration focused on developing an equities transformation gateway connecting tokenized equity capital markets with decentralized blockchain networks.

Nasdaq's equity token design represents a new approach to tokenizing stocks while preserving three critical elements: issuer control, existing regulatory frameworks, and the underlying rights attached to company shares. The architecture aims to bring blockchain's technical advantages without disrupting current market structures.