Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has widened its relationship with Nasdaq through a $100m investment from Nasdaq Ventures, continued work on a shared tokenisation framework and a new market surveillance agreement.
Nasdaq Ventures, the exchange group’s strategic investment arm, backs technologies and market infrastructure that it views as central to the long-term development of global capital markets, and its stake in Payward is being positioned as a reflection of the strategic depth of the two firms’ joint work. The tie-up is designed to support the continued build-out of tokenised market infrastructure while keeping an issuer-focused model rooted in governance, regulatory compliance and market integrity. Digital Liquidity Networks (DLN), Nasdaq’s markets division tasked with building always-on infrastructure for the movement of capital, assets and liquidity, is leading the collaboration from Nasdaq’s side.
The two companies will keep building out the operational and commercial groundwork behind Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs), with a launch targeted for the second quarter of 2027. Nasdaq had earlier this year unveiled its intention to create NETs, alongside a framework linking them to Payward’s xStocks ecosystem, laying the groundwork for tokenised equities to circulate across varied market settings without compromising the rights and protections due to issuers and investors. The upcoming phase of the partnership is set to focus on the global distribution, trading and post-trade functions required to widen adoption of tokenised equities.
Alongside this, Payward will bring in Nasdaq’s surveillance technology across its trading venues, spanning crypto, equities, tokenised equities, futures and options, broadening the alliance to cover tools aimed at protecting market integrity and investor trust. The two firms describe the goal as pairing contemporary tokenised infrastructure with safeguards that can support transparent, trusted markets at scale.
Nasdaq frames the next stage of market development as reliant on infrastructure that lets assets travel across markets more fluidly, without eroding the protections and standards participants rely on, and positions its work with Payward as central to delivering that at scale.
Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said, “The next era of market evolution will be defined by how efficiently and seamlessly capital and assets move across the financial system with durable, high-integrity liquidity. Expanding our relationship with Payward reflects our conviction that Kraken can play an important role in building the infrastructure that supports this evolution. Our partnership advances our work on Nasdaq Equity Tokens and helps build a more connected financial system while preserving the trust, transparency and integrity that underpin capital formation.”
Payward Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said, “More than $2 trillion of stock trades run through the U.S. clearing system every day. Buys and sells net down by about 98 percent, and the clearing house holds $10 billion to $20 billion of collateral against what is left while it waits a day to settle. Cutting that wait from two days to one in 2024 released $3 billion. On-chain settlement removes the wait. The next phase of the collaboration is planned to advance Nasdaq Equity Tokens onto rails that do not close, with shareholder rights intact.”
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