Nasdaq Puts $100 Million Into Kraken Parent Payward, Valuing Bitcoin Exchange at $21 Billion

$100 Million for a $21 Billion Stake

Nasdaq has committed $100 million to Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, in a deal that values the firm at $21 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The capital comes from Nasdaq's venture arm and builds on a partnership the two companies first struck in March. Under the agreement, Kraken will distribute tokenized versions of Nasdaq-listed stocks on its own platform, with each token carrying the same voting rights as an ordinary share traded on the exchange. Most tokenized equity products hand holders price exposure and nothing else; Nasdaq's design instead puts issuing companies at the center of the process. The investment marks the third time this year that an established exchange operator has taken a stake in a crypto trading venue.

Inside the Tokenized Equity Machinery

The mechanics of the deal revolve around infrastructure Payward already runs. Its xStocks service, which issues blockchain versions of listed shares, had processed more than $25 billion in trades by March. Under the expanded arrangement, Payward settles trades in Nasdaq's equity tokens and verifies the identity of the users handling them — plumbing Nasdaq would otherwise need years to build in-house. Payward already offers tokenized equities through its business-to-business arm, and the design lets investors move these assets into on-chain wallets and DeFi ecosystems built on networks such as Optimism (OP). Neither company has announced the transaction publicly, and the voting-rights feature stands out as the clearest differentiator from rival tokenized-stock products currently on the market.

A Swinging Valuation History

Payward's valuation has moved sharply across its recent deals. The company raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation in November 2025, when Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital and Citadel Securities backed the round, and reused that figure in April when agreeing to acquire derivatives exchange Bitnomial, a venue where products such as perpetual contracts trade. Deutsche Börse's $200 million purchase of 1.5% of Payward the same month, however, implied a valuation of roughly $13.3 billion. Nasdaq's $21 billion entry price therefore represents a notable step up. The company's path to public markets has been slower: it filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC in November 2025, shelved the listing in March and now targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest.

The NYSE-OKX Counterweight

The deal also sharpens a contest between legacy exchange giants for crypto rails. Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, invested roughly $200 million in OKX in March at a $25 billion valuation, taking a board seat and agreeing to open NYSE tokenized equities to OKX's 120 million accounts. By June, the two had formed a 50/50 joint venture to tokenize NYSE-listed assets and pursue broker-dealer and futures commission merchant licenses in the United States. Nasdaq's stake in Payward answers that push directly, pairing a century-old listing venue with Kraken, long among the best crypto exchanges by volume. Each incumbent now has a crypto partner in the same race: bringing listed equities on-chain.

No Shortcut to a 2027 IPO

Nothing in the arrangement accelerates Payward's listing. The company filed confidentially with the SEC in November 2025, has delayed the process twice and now points to the second quarter of 2027 as the earliest window — a conventional IPO rather than an initial DEX offering (IDO) or any token-based route. Fresh capital actually eases the pressure to go public. Payward's latest quarterly results showed revenue climbing 17% while profit collapsed, making patient, strategically aligned money more valuable than a bigger cheque. Nasdaq, whose own tokenized-equity plans depend on Payward's infrastructure, fits that profile exactly: it is not buying exposure to another crypto exchange but securing a stake in the supplier it intends to rely on, with its own equity token slated for the second quarter of next year. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

Tokenization Race Enters Capital Phase

The pattern across Thursday's disclosures is unambiguous: exchange incumbents have stopped observing tokenization and started buying the operators who already run it. Kraken's official partnership announcement confirms the scope of the collaboration, while the $100 million size and $21 billion valuation rest on people familiar with the matter — the published release does not disclose financial terms. With ICE already locked into a 50/50 venture with OKX, Nasdaq's cheque reads less like FOMO and more like supply-chain hedging. The unresolved variables remain Payward's shrinking profit margins and a public listing that may still be several quarters away.