Nasdaq Pours $100M into Tokenized Stock Play with Kraken Parent Payward

Nasdaq is betting big on tokenized stocks, investing $100 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken.

The investment marks a significant step towards developing a high-trust, high-reliability platform for tokenized stock trading.

Tokenized stocks are essentially investments recorded on a blockchain, similar to buying or selling a cryptocurrency. However, with Nasdaq's planned system, buyers will hold direct ownership and the rights that come with it, including voting.

Nasdaq and Payward aim to launch their platform, called the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework, in the second quarter of 2027. The partnership is expected to bring about a significant evolution in tokenized stock trading.