Nasdaq enters crypto: it invests $100 million in Kraken's parent company
Nasdaq enters crypto: it invests $100 million in Kraken's parent company
Nasdaq is the technology stock exchange of the United States. A stock exchange is a place where people buy and sell company shares. Now Nasdaq put $100 million into Payward.
Payward is the company that owns Kraken. Kraken is a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are digital coins, like bitcoin.
The deal values Payward at $21 billion. That is called a valuation: the price a company is guessed to be worth. Bloomberg reported it.
The money comes from Nasdaq's investment arm. It is the part that puts money into other businesses. It grows a partnership the two companies signed in March.
Inside the deal, Kraken will offer Nasdaq's tokenized stocks. A stock is a part of a company. Tokenized means it is kept in digital form.
These are stocks of companies listed on Nasdaq. Listed means the company is sold on the exchange. These digital stocks give the same voting rights as normal stocks.
Almost all similar products today only give price exposure. That means you only win or lose if the price goes up or down. Nasdaq's design keeps the rights.
It is the third time this year that a traditional exchange buys part of a crypto platform. In March, Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, invested in OKX. That deal valued OKX at $25 billion.
In April, Deutsche Börse, the German exchange, paid $200 million for 1.5% of Payward.
Nasdaq plans to launch its own token in the second quarter of next year. A token is a digital form of something valuable.
Payward's value has been unstable. In November it raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation. The Deutsche Börse purchase meant a valuation of $13.3 billion. Now Nasdaq pays $21 billion.
Payward filed a confidential request in November to go public. Going public means selling shares to the public for the first time. But it paused it in March.
That same month, Kraken got access to the central payment system of the United States central bank.
Sources: CoinDesk, Decrypt, Cointelegraph and The Block (United States). September 10, 2026.