All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders. - Nasdaq is investing $100 million in Payward.
- Payward and Nasdaq are developing a gateway between regulated and onchain equity markets.
- Existing xStocks and Nasdaq’s planned equity tokens represent legally different approaches to putting stocks onchain.
Nasdaq is investing $100 million in Payward, the parent of Kraken, at a $21 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg. The financing deepens a partnership announced in March to connect Nasdaq’s planned issuer-sponsored equity tokens with Payward’s xStocks infrastructure. But the strategic question is larger than Kraken’s valuation: Nasdaq is trying to ensure that tokenized stocks preserve the legal and governance characteristics of securities even when they begin moving through blockchain markets.
That puts Payward in an unusual position. It is no longer simply operating a crypto exchange alongside traditional market operators. Through xStocks and its broader infrastructure business, it is becoming one of the companies traditional exchanges can use to connect regulated securities with crypto-native distribution.
The Investment Follows a Deal Struck Six Months Ago
Nasdaq and Payward announced their partnership on March 9, outlining an equities transformation gateway that would connect two distinct forms of tokenized equity.
Nasdaq is developing issuer-sponsored tokens intended to retain existing shareholder rights, regulatory protections and issuer control. Payward brings xStocks, an established framework that already distributes equity-linked assets across blockchain networks. The gateway is designed to allow the two environments to interact in eligible jurisdictions.
At the time of the agreement, xStocks had surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume, including more than $4 billion settled onchain, with over 85,000 unique holders.
The $100 million investment gives Nasdaq direct economic exposure to the infrastructure provider it selected for that connection.
At a $21 billion valuation, the transaction is also relatively small compared with Payward’s overall value. Its importance lies less in the size of the check than in the relationship behind it: a major U.S. exchange operator is backing the crypto company involved in extending its equity infrastructure onto blockchain networks.
An xStock Is Not Simply a Nasdaq Share Put on a Blockchain
This is the legal distinction that often disappears from the tokenized-stock discussion.
Existing xStocks provide 1:1-backed exposure to underlying securities, but they are not created by changing the shareholder register of Apple, Nvidia or another public company and replacing the conventional share with a blockchain token.
Legal documentation from Backed Assets classifies the products as certificates tracking an underlying asset under Swiss law. They are issued as blockchain tokens and backed by the corresponding underlying securities. The current prospectus was approved in Liechtenstein, while the products are restricted from being offered or delivered to U.S. persons.
That structure can give an investor economic exposure to a stock while making the asset portable across supported blockchain networks. But it should not be confused with directly owning the conventional registered share itself.
Nasdaq is proposing something different.
Its planned equity-token framework puts the public company at the center of tokenization. Nasdaq says the model is intended to preserve issuer control and the underlying rights associated with shares, including functions such as corporate actions, proxy voting and shareholder engagement.
The Payward gateway is meant to make those two architectures interoperable rather than pretending they are already the same product.
Tokenized Equities Have a Rights Problem, Not Just a Settlement Problem
Much of the investment case for blockchain-based stocks revolves around faster settlement, 24/7 availability and the ability to move assets directly between wallets.
Those benefits become less impressive if tokenization separates investors from rights they expect when owning equity.
Dividends have to reach the correct holder. Stock splits and other corporate actions need to propagate through the tokenized structure. Voting rights have to be recognized if the instrument promises them. Prices cannot detach indefinitely from the underlying market, and ownership records must remain compatible with securities regulation.
Nasdaq’s design is effectively an attempt to bring those functions onchain without creating a second, legally ambiguous version of the stock.
For Payward, the opportunity is on the other side of that equation: distribution.
xStocks already operate across multiple blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, BNB Smart Chain, TRON and TON. That gives Payward an existing network through which tokenized assets can reach crypto-native markets.
Nasdaq has the issuer relationships. Payward has the onchain rails.
So What Changes for an Investor?
For an everyday investor, tokenization does not automatically make a stock better. The practical value depends on what the token legally represents and what can be done with it after purchase.
A mature tokenized-equity market could change several parts of the experience:
- Trading hours: blockchain-based markets can operate beyond the conventional U.S. exchange session.
- Asset mobility: investors could potentially withdraw eligible securities to compatible wallets rather than leaving every position inside a brokerage account.
- Collateral: tokenized shares could be moved into financing arrangements or other permitted financial applications without waiting for conventional market infrastructure.
- Settlement: blockchain rails can reduce the gap between execution and final transfer of the asset.
- Global access: tokenized structures can expand distribution in jurisdictions where direct access to U.S. brokerage markets is limited.
But the wrapper matters as much as the technology.
A token giving economic exposure to a share, a derivative tracking that share and an issuer-sponsored token carrying shareholder rights may all display approximately the same market price while giving the holder different legal claims.
That is why Nasdaq’s involvement is important. The company is not merely trying to make stocks transferable on a blockchain. It is trying to establish what a tokenized Nasdaq-listed security should represent once it gets there.
Payward Is Building a Business Between Crypto and Market Infrastructure
The partnership also says something about Payward’s direction.
In March, the company launched Payward Services as a B2B platform combining digital-asset trading, custody, settlement, stablecoin payments, lending, staking and tokenized-asset infrastructure through a unified integration.
That makes xStocks part of a broader enterprise strategy rather than an isolated Kraken product.
If traditional exchanges increasingly want blockchain distribution without building crypto infrastructure internally, Payward can sell the rails instead of competing only for their trading customers.
Nasdaq, meanwhile, can use existing blockchain distribution while retaining influence over how its issuers and their securities enter those markets.
There is a tension in that model. Open blockchain networks are designed to make assets portable across applications and venues. Public equity markets depend on regulated intermediaries, ownership records, corporate governance and investor protections. Connecting the two means deciding which parts of permissionless finance remain permissionless once the asset being transferred is a regulated security.
2027 Will Test Whether the Two Models Can Actually Connect
Nasdaq expects its equity-token program and additional distributed-ledger services to begin becoming operational in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory review and continued work with issuers, investors, transfer agents and market infrastructure providers. Participation by public companies is intended to remain voluntary.
That leaves a substantial amount of work between the investment and a functioning market.
The strongest evidence will not be another funding round or a larger catalog of tokenized tickers. It will be an issuer allowing its shares to exist in Nasdaq’s tokenized framework, investors receiving the rights promised by that structure, and those assets moving through Payward’s gateway without breaking the connection to the regulated market underneath them.
If that happens, the $100 million investment will look less like Nasdaq buying exposure to a crypto company and more like an early investment in the plumbing for a new securities market.
