Nasdaq Invests US$100 Million In Kraken Parent Payward

Nasdaq has announced today (Thursday) that it has invested US$100 million in Payward, the parent company of Kraken. The capital injection from Nasdaq’s venture arm aims to support the “continued evolution of tokenised market infrastructure.” The tie-up also involves a new market surveillance agreement.

This investment builds upon a partnership with Payward announced in March, through which Kraken is set to distribute Nasdaq's tokenized stocks directly on its platform.

"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," said Tal Cohen, President, Nasdaq. "Expanding our relationship with Payward reflects our conviction that the company can play an important role in building the infrastructure that supports this evolution.”

Tokenization to Solve 24/7 Trading Issues?

This investment aligns with a wider movement toward 24/7 trading, in which tokenization is expected to play a central role. The New York Stock Exchange is developing a blockchain platform designed to enable 24/7 trading of tokenized equities and ETFs.

Integrating real-world assets into blockchain networks brings trading closer to how the crypto market operates, offering a potential solution to round-the-clock liquidity challenges, among others.

While tokenization promises rapid demand generation and broad distribution, it faces significant operational hurdles. A key limitation remains its current inability to consistently guarantee the actual delivery of underlying assets, an issue particularly evident with scarce and highly sought-after assets like blockbuster IPOs.

For example, platforms including Binance, Bybit, Bitget Wallet, and MEXC were forced to cancel tokenized SpaceX IPO allocations and issue refunds to users after failing to secure the required shares.