Kraken Partners With Nasdaq To Build Tokenized Equity Gateway

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has entered a strategic partnership with Nasdaq to develop an equities transformation gateway designed to bridge regulated tokenized equity markets with permissionless blockchain networks. This infrastructure will utilize Kraken's xStocks product, which has already facilitated over $25 billion in total transaction volume and currently supports more than 85,000 unique holders. Scheduled for launch in the first half of 2027, the gateway aims to enable the movement of tokenized equities between permissioned environments and open on-chain ecosystems while maintaining regulatory compliance. Payward will manage KYC and AML onboarding, serving as the primary settlement layer for Nasdaq's issuer-sponsored equity token design in select jurisdictions. By enabling equities to function as interoperable collateral across spot, derivatives, and lending markets, the initiative seeks to eliminate the capital silos inherent in traditional brokerage systems. This development represents a significant shift toward enhancing capital efficiency by allowing equities to operate within unified margin frameworks similar to those found in crypto derivatives. Ultimately, the project aims to transform equities from static assets into natively interoperable instruments that preserve issuer rights and price integrity across diverse financial applications.