Nasdaq Invests $100M in Kraken Parent Payward at $21B Valuation
Nasdaq is investing $100 million in Payward, Kraken’s parent, valuing the crypto exchange at $21 billion. The deal comes from Nasdaq’s venture arm and builds on a March partnership between the two firms. Under that pact, Kraken will offer Nasdaq’s tokenized stocks on its platform, letting customers trade tokenized versions of U.S. equities with the same voting rights as the underlying shares. This differs from most tokenized stock products, which usually provide only price exposure. Nasdaq and Kraken are also working on a gateway to move tokenized equities between regulated and on-chain markets. The investment follows similar moves by other major exchanges, including ICE’s stake in OKX and Deutsche Börse’s purchase of a Payward stake. Nasdaq also plans to launch its own token next year.
