Nasdaq Bets Big on Tokenized Stocks with $100M Payward Investment

Nasdaq has made a significant investment in Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, by committing $100 million to build 'Nasdaq Equity Tokens' (NETs). The goal is to enable stocks to trade and settle beyond normal market hours without compromising on transparency and orderly markets.

The partnership between Nasdaq and Payward aims to create regulated infrastructure for tokenized securities. This comes as investors show increasing interest in blockchain-based assets, and crypto-native platforms seek to expand into the stock market. The companies plan to launch NETs on Payward's xStocks platform in the second quarter of 2027.

Nasdaq's investment is a test of whether tokenized settlement can improve efficiency by reducing spreads. If successful, NETs could draw activity away from traditional exchange-and-clearing setups built around fixed sessions and batch-like processing. Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward, described the approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission as getting equities onto 'rails that do not close', while maintaining normal shareholder rights.