Kraken Parent Lands $100 Million Nasdaq Bet Before Planned IPO, But Why?

Nasdaq is investing $100 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, in a deal that values the firm at $21 billion, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The money comes from Nasdaq’s venture investment arm and expands a partnership the two companies struck in March. Neither firm has announced the deal publicly.

Why Nasdaq Is Buying Into Kraken Parent Payward

Nasdaq wants shares to trade as tokens, meaning digital records held on a blockchain that can change hands outside normal exchange hours. Building that machinery from scratch takes years.

Payward already runs it. Its xStocks service, which issues blockchain versions of listed shares, had processed more than $25 billion in trades by March, according to Kraken. Under the partnership, Payward settles Nasdaq’s equity token trades and checks who is using them.

BeInCrypto reported on Sept. 2 that Kraken was quietly building a Wall Street crypto gateway with Nasdaq, the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse while stalling its own listing. Nasdaq has now bought a piece of that gateway.

What the Money Does Not Buy

Nothing in the Bloomberg account speeds up the initial public offering. Payward filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2025, delayed twice, and now targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest.

Fresh cash cuts the pressure to list. The $21 billion price tag also marks a modest step up from the $20 billion valuation set in November 2025, when Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital and Citadel Securities backed the company.

That matters more than the size of the cheque. Payward’s latest quarterly earnings showed revenue climbing 17% while profit collapsed. A backer whose own product depends on Payward’s plumbing, from tokenized London stocks to US equity tokens, carries weight no ordinary investor brings.

Nasdaq is not betting on another crypto exchange. It is paying to own part of the supplier it plans to depend on.

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