Nasdaq is deepening its bet on tokenized stocks with a $100 million investment in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, the exchange operator announced on September 10. The capital comes through Nasdaq Ventures, its strategic investment arm, and arrives with two further commitments. Alongside the funding, the companies will continue their work on the Nasdaq Equity Token framework and have signed a new market surveillance agreement spanning Payward’s trading venues.
The deal binds one of the two main U.S. equity exchange operators to a crypto-native firm at the point where equities, blockchain rails, and regulatory infrastructure are converging. Nasdaq is wiring itself into the machinery that could move company shares onto programmable networks that never close, while Payward gains a traditional-finance partner whose surveillance and governance credentials address the compliance gap that has slowed crypto’s move into regulated securities.
The Token Framework
Nasdaq and Payward will keep building the operational and commercial infrastructure behind Nasdaq Equity Tokens, or NETs, with a target launch in the second quarter of 2027. The firms first outlined the framework earlier this year, connecting the token design to Payward’s xStocks ecosystem. The planned gateway links Nasdaq’s market systems with the xStocks framework operated by Backed, letting tokenized shares pass between regulated markets and blockchain networks without breaking compliance rules or altering issuer rights.
Nasdaq is running the collaboration through Digital Liquidity Networks, its markets unit focused on always-on infrastructure. The company frames the work around keeping issuers at the center, an approach that has Payward Services handling identity verification and compliance checks for participants accessing tokenized equities through Kraken.
“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,” said Tal Cohen, President of Nasdaq.
“Expanding our relationship with Payward reflects our conviction that the company can play an important role in building the infrastructure that supports this evolution.”
Investor Takeaway
Nasdaq and Payward are targeting a Q2 2027 launch for Nasdaq Equity Tokens, linking traditional market infrastructure with blockchain-based trading while preserving compliance and issuer rights.
The Settlement Case
Payward’s leadership pitched the partnership as a fix for legacy clearing. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi noted that more than $2 trillion of stock trades run through the U.S. clearing system every day, where buys and sells net down by roughly 98 percent and the clearing house holds $10 billion to $20 billion of collateral against the remainder while it waits a day to settle. Cutting that wait from two days to one in 2024 freed up $3 billion, he said, and onchain settlement removes the wait entirely.
Payward will adopt Nasdaq’s surveillance technology across its trading venues, covering crypto, equities, tokenized equities, futures, and options. Wells Fargo served as Nasdaq’s exclusive capital markets advisor on the transaction.
The investment values Payward at $21 billion, according to Bloomberg, up from the $20 billion valuation attached to its previous funding round. The deal comes as Nasdaq deepens its partnership with the parent company of Kraken, which has been expanding beyond crypto trading into equities, derivatives and other financial products.
Bar chart of crypto startup funding reaching $14.54 billion, January–August 2026. Source: DeFiLlama.Payward’s raise is one piece of a broader funding wave; Crypto startups worldwide pulled in roughly $14.54 billion between January and August this year, according to DeFiLlama, with firms including Kalshi, Crypto.com, Alpaca, Gauntlet, Felix Pago, and Ionic Digital each raising hundreds of millions of dollars.
Investor Takeaway
Payward says onchain settlement could eliminate traditional clearing delays, while Nasdaq’s surveillance technology will extend across Payward’s crypto, equity, tokenized equity, futures, and options venues.