Nasdaq to Invest $100 Million in Kraken Parent Payward at $21 Billion Valuation

Nasdaq plans to invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.

Bloomberg reported on September 10, citing people familiar with the matter, that Nasdaq's venture investment arm recently decided to make the investment. The deal values Payward at $21 billion.

The investment extends the tokenized stock partnership Nasdaq and Payward announced in March. The companies are jointly developing infrastructure to transfer tokenized stocks between traditional finance, or TradFi, markets and blockchain-based markets.

As part of the partnership, Kraken plans to distribute Nasdaq's tokenized stocks on its platform. Users will be able to hold tokenized versions of Nasdaq-listed shares and exercise the same voting rights as holders of conventional stock.

Nasdaq's tokenized stock initiative is focused on preserving issuers' rights and existing shareholders' ownership. The plan is to connect shares in regulated markets to the on-chain ecosystem while maintaining existing functions such as corporate actions, voting and shareholder communication.

Nasdaq is also pursuing a plan to launch its own tokenized product as early as the second quarter of next year. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Nasdaq's proposed rule change for tokenized stock trading in March.