The U.S. exchange group Nasdaq has agreed to invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken.
The investment will be made through Nasdaq Ventures and is intended to deepen the companies’ collaboration in the areas of tokenized stocks, 24/7 trading, and the integration of traditional financial infrastructure with blockchain.
Nasdaq and Payward are working on the Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs) system. The idea is to create a digital representation of traditional stocks while preserving ownership rights, transparency, and corporate governance.
The project demonstrates that tokenization is no longer an experiment limited to cryptocurrency companies. Major traditional exchanges are gradually beginning to build their own blockchain infrastructure.
Almost simultaneously, the London Stock Exchange Group announced a partnership with Payward. As part of the project, the plan is to tokenize the 100 largest companies traded on the London Stock Exchange.
In the future, tokenized shares are expected to be admitted to trading on the LSE 24 platform, which is designed to provide significantly longer trading hours compared to a traditional trading session.
According to Reuters Breakingviews, the global market for tokenized shares currently stands at only about $3 billion, with monthly turnover of less than $30 billion—a figure that remains insignificant compared to traditional markets.
Nevertheless, the involvement of Nasdaq, the LSE, and other major operators marks the transition of tokenization to the next phase—the integration of blockchain infrastructure directly into regulated stock markets.
The main advantages of the technology include the ability to settle transactions almost instantly, fractional ownership, expanded trading options, and the use of tokenized securities as collateral in digital financial systems.
The main unresolved issue remains the rights of token holders: not all existing digital equivalents of stocks automatically grant investors voting rights or dividends. This is precisely why traditional exchanges are striving to create models in which a digital token is as legally similar as possible to a conventional stock.
