Nasdaq Ventures agreed on September 10 to invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, at a $21 billion valuation. The capital will fund the continued development of Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs), a framework for issuing blockchain-based representations of publicly ...
"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." — Tal Cohen, President, Nasdaq
Nasdaq Ventures agreed on September 10 to invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, at a $21 billion valuation. The capital will fund the continued development of Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs), a framework for issuing blockchain-based representations of publicly listed stocks that carry full shareholder voting rights. Launch is targeted for Q2 2027.
The deal sits at the intersection of two converging trends: traditional exchanges moving to tokenize their own listings, and crypto-native platforms expanding into regulated securities. With the DTCC running a tokenized securities pilot since July 2026, the SEC having approved tokenized equity frameworks for both Nasdaq and NYSE, and Payward's xStocks platform already past $25 billion in cumulative transaction volume, the infrastructure for on-chain equity trading is assembling faster than market participants anticipated twelve months ago.
Wells Fargo served as Nasdaq's exclusive capital markets advisor on the transaction.
The $100 million investment from Nasdaq Ventures into Payward comprises three components:
The deal expands a partnership initiated in March 2026, when the two companies announced plans to build an "equities transformation gateway" connecting regulated markets with blockchain networks. Nasdaq's Digital Liquidity Networks (DLN) division, launched in August 2026, leads the tokenized infrastructure effort.
Arjun Sethi, Payward's co-CEO, framed the settlement benefit directly: "On-chain settlement removes the wait." The reference is to the current T+1 settlement standard, which itself only arrived in May 2024, reducing settlement from two days to one.
Payward has raised significant capital across 2025-2026, assembling a shareholder base that spans crypto venture, traditional finance, and global exchange operators:
| Date | Investor | Amount | Implied Valuation | |------|----------|--------|-------------------| | Nov 2025 | Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital, Tribe Capital | $800M | Not disclosed | | Apr 2026 | Deutsche Börse | $200M (1.5% stake) | $13.3B | | Sep 2026 | Nasdaq Ventures | $100M | $21B |
The $21 billion valuation represents a 58% increase from the Deutsche Börse round five months earlier. Between those rounds, Payward acquired stablecoin payments company Reap for $600 million, derivatives platform Bitnomial for $550 million, and completed its $1.5 billion acquisition of NinjaTrader in 2025.
Payward filed a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC on November 19, 2025. The IPO timeline has since shifted to Q2 2027 at the earliest, coinciding with the planned NET launch. The presence of two major exchange operators — Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse — on the cap table adds strategic credibility to the listing.
A Nasdaq Equity Token is a blockchain representation of an actual listed share — not a synthetic derivative, not a contract-for-difference, and not a perpetual. According to Nasdaq's press release, the token carries the same ticker, price, and investor rights as the underlying ordinary share.
Key design principles:
This design contrasts with existing tokenized stock products that typically wrap equities through intermediary structures, sometimes stripping or diluting governance rights. Nasdaq is positioning NETs as the "official" tokenized version of its listed securities, backed by its exchange infrastructure and surveillance tools.
Kraken's xStocks, a joint venture with Backed Finance launched in June 2025, provides the distribution infrastructure that NETs will eventually use. The platform's metrics through September 2026:
xStocks represents 7 of the top 10 tokenized stocks by 24-hour trading volume. Transaction volume encompasses centralized exchange trading, decentralized exchange activity, and minting/redemption operations.
The tokenized equities market saw volumes surge 145% to a record $3.86 billion as of June 2026. Wallet count reached 1.18 million by mid-August 2026, up from 58,999 one year prior — a 1,900% increase.
Major competitors and their positioning:
The Nasdaq-Payward arrangement is structurally distinct from these competitors. It pairs a primary exchange operator (the listing venue itself) with a crypto-native distribution platform, creating a direct pipeline from primary listing to blockchain-based secondary trading. No other arrangement currently connects an exchange of Nasdaq's scale directly to a crypto trading venue.
The regulatory environment for tokenized equities has shifted materially in 2026:
January 2026: The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, Division of Investment Management, and Division of Trading and Markets issued a joint statement clarifying that tokenizing a security does not change its regulatory classification. Federal securities laws apply based on economic substance — tokenized stocks remain subject to the same rules as their underlying instruments.
March 2026: The SEC approved Nasdaq's proposed rules for tokenized equities trading on blockchain rails alongside traditional shares. The SEC's Investor Advisory Committee also approved a recommendation on tokenization of equity securities at its March 12 meeting.
April 2026: The NYSE received similar SEC approval for tokenized equity frameworks.
May 2026: SEC Chair Paul Atkins signaled the agency was considering new rulemaking for an "innovation exemption" to accommodate blockchain-based trading and settlement systems.
This regulatory architecture resolves a core question that held back tokenized equities for years: whether on-chain representations of stocks would face separate or conflicting regulatory treatment. The SEC's position is now clear — same asset, same rules, different rails.
Separately, Citadel Securities sent a letter on September 9 urging the SEC to assert oversight of event contracts tied to U.S. public companies, arguing that CFTC-registered venues should not use self-certification to circumvent SEC jurisdiction over equity-linked products. The letter underscores ongoing jurisdictional tension in the broader tokenized/synthetic equity space.
The economic argument for tokenized equities centers on collateral efficiency. According to PYMNTS, approximately $2 trillion in daily stock trades run through the U.S. clearing system. The clearing house holds $10-20 billion in collateral at any given time, with a netting rate of approximately 98%.
The move from T+2 to T+1 settlement in 2024 released an estimated $3 billion in capital. Instant (T+0 or near-instant) on-chain settlement would compress the remaining collateral requirement further. The magnitude depends on implementation details — whether settlement finality occurs at the blockchain layer or still requires reconciliation with legacy systems.
Payward's Sethi has framed this as the core value proposition: eliminating the settlement wait entirely. For institutional participants, the freed capital can be redeployed for trading, lending, or other yield-generating activity. For retail users, the benefit is simpler: trades settle when they execute, not one business day later.
The Nasdaq-Payward deal represents a structural shift in how equity markets may operate. Rather than bolting tokenization onto existing infrastructure as an afterthought, Nasdaq is building a parallel distribution channel through a crypto-native platform that already handles $25 billion in tokenized equity volume.
The alignment of timelines is notable: NETs launch in Q2 2027, the DTCC's full tokenized securities platform goes live in October 2026, and Payward's IPO is penciled for Q2 2027. If these milestones hold, the U.S. equity market will have three overlapping tokenized infrastructure layers operational within an eight-month window.
Whether the economic benefits — collateral release, always-on trading, faster settlement — translate into meaningful adoption depends on execution at the integration layer. The technology exists. The regulatory framework is in place. The remaining variable is whether institutional market participants will reroute volume onto these new rails, or continue to treat tokenized equities as a parallel but marginal market.
The $100 million figure is modest by Nasdaq's standards. The strategic signal is not.