Nasdaq’s venture arm has invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, valuing the firm at $21 billion and deepening a partnership to bring tokenized stocks with voting rights to crypto traders.
Bloomberg reported the investment on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal expands a collaboration announced in March, when Nasdaq and Payward agreed to build infrastructure that connects regulated equity markets with blockchain networks. Payward raised a Series D round in January and has been weighing a public listing since March 2025, when the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against the exchange.
Under the agreement, Kraken will distribute tokenized versions of Nasdaq-listed stocks. The tokens are designed to carry the same voting rights as ordinary shares traded on the exchange, a detail that separates the program from most tokenized equity products on the market today. Nasdaq’s announcement describes an issuer-sponsored model in which companies keep control over how their shares appear on-chain.
Payward will also adopt Nasdaq’s market surveillance technology across its trading venues, covering crypto, tokenized equities, futures and options. The companies said the tools are meant to monitor for manipulation as trading moves onto new rails. Nasdaq described the approach as issuer-centric, grounded in existing governance and regulatory compliance rather than a parallel market structure.
Nasdaq Equity Tokens target 2027
The tokenized stocks, called Nasdaq Equity Tokens, are scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2027. Nasdaq filed with the SEC in September 2025 to allow securities to trade in tokenized form, and in August agreed to buy LeveL Markets, a deal that extends trading beyond conventional market hours. The company’s Digital Liquidity Networks business leads the effort, and it treats always-on settlement as the core product rather than an add-on.
Kraken’s xStocks framework sits at the center of the design. Launched less than a year ago, xStocks have processed more than $25 billion in total transaction volume, including over $4 billion settled on-chain, with more than 85,000 unique holders, according to Payward. For an initial period, Payward will serve as the primary settlement layer for Nasdaq Equity Token transactions in eligible jurisdictions, and Payward Services will handle KYC and AML onboarding for token holders.
“Our partnership with Nasdaq is important because tokenization alone does not create markets. Markets require liquidity, risk management and reliable infrastructure,” Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi said when the collaboration was announced in March.
Exchanges race into tokenization
The investment lands in a crowded field. NYSE is building its own venue for 24-7 trading of tokenized stocks and ETFs. Robinhood’s layer-2 chain has pulled in tens of millions in fees from tokenized equity activity, and Binance’s bStocks reached roughly $118.5 million within two months of launch, according to CoinDesk Research. Tokenized equity trading reached about $3 billion in weekly spot volume in August, with Robinhood Chain, BNB Chain and Solana leading activity.
Exchanges see the products as a way to keep customers trading outside market hours and to reach investors in markets where direct access to US stocks is limited. The London Stock Exchange said last week it will work with Payward to bring the biggest UK-listed stocks on-chain, an expansion that would put two of the world’s largest equity markets on the same tokenization stack.
Payward has been assembling its own financial stack this year. Kraken Financial won access to the Federal Reserve’s payment systems in March. SoFi joined forces with Payward last week, listing SoFi’s SoFiUSD stablecoin on Kraken and connecting the exchange to SoFi’s round-the-clock dollar settlement network. The company also operates Kraken Prime, a prime brokerage that now provides liquidity for SoFi’s retail crypto trades.
The funding also arrives as Payward weighs a public listing. A $21 billion mark gives underwriters a fresh reference point, up from the $20 billion Payward sought in fundraising talks reported in May. The stake is a minority position and does not change control, and Kraken did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Compliance sits at the center of the design. That is a contrast with tokenized products that moved offshore to avoid registration, and it explains why the launch timeline runs to 2027 rather than this year. Nasdaq wants issuers on board before trading starts, and issuers want to know that a tokenized share cannot end up trading in a market they never approved.
For tokenized equities, voting rights remain the sticking point. Most tokenized stock products today track price without granting governance rights, which limits their appeal to institutions that must vote proxies. Nasdaq’s design tries to close that gap, though it remains to be seen how proxy mechanics work across a blockchain wrapper and how corporate actions such as dividends and splits get mirrored on-chain.
Nasdaq’s move follows a pattern among traditional market operators. Cboe filed rules covering crypto ETP market-maker quoting standards, and Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE’s owner, has pushed into digital asset custody. The infrastructure bet differs from the ETF business: instead of wrapping crypto for stock investors, operators are wrapping stocks for crypto investors, and the direction of the flow is new.
Regulators will watch the settlement layer closely. The SEC has signaled that tokenized securities remain securities, which means the same transfer restrictions, disclosure duties and short-sale rules apply on-chain as off. Nasdaq’s surveillance licensing to Payward addresses the market-integrity half of that equation. The custody half, which decides who holds the underlying shares backing each token, will likely draw scrutiny as launch approaches.
If the timeline holds, the first tokenized Nasdaq stocks with voting rights would reach Kraken users in the second quarter of 2027, more than two years after the exchange operator first proposed the idea. That is slow by crypto standards and fast by securities-market standards, and both camps will be watching to see which clock wins.