Nasdaq Invests Big in Tokenized Stocks via Payward-Kraken Partnership
Nasdaq has invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, valuing it at $21 billion. This investment is a significant development in the tokenized stock partnership between Nasdaq and Kraken, announced in March.
The two companies are working together to develop infrastructure that enables the transfer of tokenized stocks between traditional financial markets and blockchain-based markets. As part of this collaboration, Kraken plans to distribute Nasdaq's tokenized stocks on its own platform.
Nasdaq's tokenized stock initiative focuses on preserving the rights of issuing companies and the ownership of existing shareholders. The vision is to connect regulated market stocks to the on-chain ecosystem while maintaining existing functions such as corporate actions, voting rights, and shareholder communications.