Nasdaq bets big on tokenized stocks with $100 million investment in Kraken parent Payward

fortune.com · 2026-09-10

The investment reportedly pushes Kraken’s valuation to $21 billion.

TickrTrends take: ICE's substantial investment in Payward, Kraken's parent company, signals management confidence in the tokenization of equities as a meaningful growth vector within financial services infrastructure. This strategic bet aligns with ICE's historical pattern of acquiring and developing technology platforms that modernize market structure, similar to its previous expansions into data services and derivatives trading. For valuation-focused readers, the key metric to monitor is whether tokenization adoption gains traction as an alternative trading mechanism, which could either validate ICE's infrastructure investments or require the company to pivot its technology roadmap.

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