In a landmark move for financial markets, Nasdaq announced on Monday, March 9, 2026, that it is partnering with Payward (the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken) to build a bridge between traditional stock exchanges and blockchain technology.

The collaboration aims to create a new “equities transformation gateway” that will allow public companies to issue and manage their shares as digital tokens.

A Regulated Bridge to Decentralized Finance

The partnership leverages Kraken’s established xStocks framework—a system that has already processed over $25 billion in volume—to connect highly regulated, permissioned markets with the open world of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Key features of the initiative include:

• Interoperability: The new gateway will allow tokenized stocks to move fluidly between traditional institutional trading systems and global on-chain networks.
• Issuer Control: Unlike previous third-party attempts to tokenize stocks, Nasdaq’s design puts the actual public companies at the center, allowing them to maintain control over ownership rights and share registries.
• Modernized Governance: By using blockchain, companies can automate traditionally manual processes like proxy voting, dividend distributions, and real-time shareholder engagement.

“Always-On” Global Markets

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen highlighted that tokenization has the potential to unlock an “always-on financial ecosystem.” By representing shares as programmable digital instruments, the exchange hopes to broaden global access to U.S. markets while ensuring that every digital token remains legally equivalent to a traditional share.

To maintain security and compliance, Kraken will handle the essential “Know Your Customer” (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) onboarding for participants entering this new ecosystem.

Looking Ahead

The initiative follows a 2025 proposal Nasdaq filed with the SEC and aligns with a 2026 staff statement that treats tokenized equities the same as regular securities under federal law. Nasdaq expects the new token design and its associated services to become fully operational for issuers starting in the first half of 2027.

As rivals like the New York Stock Exchange and Coinbase also eye the tokenization space, the Nasdaq-Kraken deal marks a significant step toward a future where the line between “crypto” and “capital markets” ceases to exist.