Payward raises $100M from Nasdaq to expand financial infrastructure

Building the One Ledger Architecture and Four Pillars

Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi outlined the company’s operational blueprint during an interview with CoinDesk, stating that the firm operates as a single platform with one balance sheet and a unified regulatory stack. The business model rests upon four distinct pillars: trading via Kraken, banking operations, asset management, and Payward Services, which functions as the company’s business-to-business infrastructure division. To support these pillars across more than 190 countries and territories, Kraken maintains approximately 6.6 million funded accounts holding between $40 billion and $50 billion in customer assets, according to Sethi. The company is actively expanding this footprint by adding services such as payment cards, lending, derivatives, and tokenized equities, alongside mechanisms allowing customers to borrow against assets or deploy them within decentralized finance applications. Kraken Financial, a Wyoming-chartered special-purpose depository institution, is also integrated into this operational stack. Behind this expansion lies the "One Ledger" concept, which utilizes a blockchain-based shared ledger designed to enable funds and assets to move easily between products without relying on traditional intermediaries. Sethi noted that the conventional financial system remains constrained by legacy technology that forces delays in securities settlement, weekend and overnight market closures, and complex reconciliations across separate ledgers maintained by banks, brokers, custodians, and clearinghouses.

Major Acquisitions and European Bank Expansion

Rather than building every capability from scratch, Payward combines internal development with large-scale mergers and acquisitions determined through a quantitative framework. The company paid $1.5 billion to acquire NinjaTrader, securing a U.S. futures brokerage along with its underlying technology and regulatory permissions. This was followed by a $550 million acquisition of Bitnomial, which added a regulated derivatives exchange, clearinghouse, and futures brokerage to Payward’s portfolio. In Europe, Payward is advancing plans to acquire a regional bank. Sethi stated that the company is about to acquire a bank in Europe without disclosing the specific target, following a Bloomberg report from July indicating that Payward planned to acquire a Lithuanian bank to facilitate continental expansion.

Tokenization Partnerships with Traditional Exchanges

Payward is simultaneously forging strategic alliances with major incumbent exchanges that blockchain technology was once projected to disrupt. The $100 million investment from Nasdaq’s venture capital arm advances joint work on the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework and a new market surveillance agreement designed to support tokenized equities trading, clearing, and settlement. Tal Cohen, president at Nasdaq, stated that expanding the relationship reflects conviction in Payward’s role in building supporting infrastructure. The two companies expect to launch NETs in the second quarter of 2027, building on prior work to connect with Payward’s xStocks ecosystem. These xStocks tokens operate as 1:1-backed representations of underlying shares designed to preserve issuer rights, governance features, and regulatory protections. Sethi noted that xStocks trading volume has grown rapidly since launch. Germany’s Deutsche Börse also holds a 1.5% fully diluted stake in Payward following a $200 million investment, while the London Stock Exchange has partnered with Payward to explore tokenized public equities, including plans to list xStocks representing the 100 largest London-listed companies on its LSE 24 exchange slated for 2027. Payward Services is also commercializing this underlying infrastructure, offering custody, liquidity, compliance, and risk management tools to external corporate clients.