Nasdaq’s venture capital arm will invest $100 million in Kraken’s parent company Payword to partner with crypto companies to launch a tokenized stock in 2027 and build the market infrastructure and surveillance technology to support it.
The deal expands on the previously announced partnership between Nasdaq and Payward to test the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET). In this new phase, the two companies will develop the infrastructure to distribute and trade tokenized stocks, which are a matter of public securities, other assets, or digital representations of any form of value on a blockchain network, Nasdaq announced Thursday morning.
The partners plan to launch tokenized shares in the second quarter of 2027. Holders of tokenized assets do not have full ownership of the assets themselves.
Payward also plans to adopt Nasdaq’s market surveillance technology across its trading venues, including cryptocurrencies and tokenized stocks, as the Kraken exchange looks to move beyond cryptocurrencies into equities, derivatives, and other traditional financial instruments in an effort to transform the crypto exchange into a broader multi-asset trading platform.
The investment values the cryptocurrency company at $21 billion, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the story on Thursday.
“The next era in market evolution will be determined by how efficiently and seamlessly capital and assets move across the financial system with persistent liquidity,” Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said in a statement. “Our expanded relationship with Payward reflects our belief that the company can play a critical 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 maintaining the trust, transparency and integrity that underpins capital formation.”
The investment reflects a growing push on Wall Street to make tokenized securities part of the mainstream market, with Nasdaq aiming for a stock market where stocks can exist on blockchain networks alongside traditional financial infrastructure. By creating a parallel system with Payward, Nasdaq could eventually speed up trading and settlement, allowing the market to operate around the clock.
This latest deal comes amid a spat between Robinhood and AMC’s CEO, which focuses on the brokerage offering tokenized versions of AMC stock without AMC’s involvement, and gives investors a glimpse into a larger discussion about what exactly “tokenized stock” represents and what rights its holders will receive.
AMC claims it is creating a synthetic market that gives investors economic exposure without actual shareholder rights, but Robinhood defended its position Wednesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying it and other companies are free to create and offer financial products that reference publicly traded stocks.
