According to Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter, Nasdaq's venture capital department will invest $100 million in the parent company of the crypto exchange Kraken, Payward, which is valued at approximately $21 billion. Cooperation between traditional exchanges and crypto platforms is expanding from business integration to equity investments.

Cooperation extends to tokenized stocks.

This investment is built on the cooperation agreed upon by both parties in March of this year. According to the arrangements at that time, Kraken will distribute NASDAQ's tokenized stock products on its own platform, allowing users to hold NASDAQ-listed stocks in the form of tokens and enjoy the same voting rights as shares traded on the exchange.

Currently, most tokenized stock products on the market mainly provide price exposure, and holders typically do not possess full shareholder rights. Reports indicate that NASDAQ's approach places more emphasis on the participation of issuers and is working with Kraken to establish a channel that connects compliant markets with on-chain markets, supporting the transfer of tokenized stocks across different scenarios.

Traditional exchanges continue to invest in crypto platforms

The report mentions that this is the third time this year that a mature exchange operator has invested in a crypto exchange. The relationship between traditional financial infrastructure institutions and crypto platforms is expanding from channel cooperation to capital integration and joint product development.

Bloomberg also reported that NASDAQ plans to launch its own token products in the second quarter of next year, but the report did not disclose more structural details. Kraken currently provides related tokenized stock services through its Payward Services platform for institutional business.

Payward There are differences in valuation.

The valuation of Payward has not been stable in the past year. When the company raised $800 million in financing last November, its valuation was $20 billion; in April this year, when it agreed to acquire the derivatives exchange Bitnomial, it continued to use that same valuation.

However, according to trading data calculated by Bloomberg, the shares purchased by Deutsche Börse in the same month were valued at approximately $13.3 billion, indicating significant differences in pricing across different transactions. Payward submitted a S-1 document in November last year, but postponed the listing process in March this year.

Additional information:The report also mentioned that Kraken became the first crypto company to be approved to connect to the Federal Reserve's core payment system in March of this year, which is also an important advancement in deepening its connection with the traditional financial system.