Nasdaq Injects $100 Million into Kraken Parent to Boost Tokenized Stock Trading

Nasdaq has invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of Kraken. The investment is part of a broader expansion of the partnership between Nasdaq and Payward to advance their work on the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework. This framework is expected to launch NETs in the second quarter of 2027.

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen stated that '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.'

The investment will support the continued evolution of tokenized market infrastructure. Payward's Co-CEO Arjun Sethi noted that cutting the wait time for settlement from two days to one day in 2024 released $3 billion.