Nasdaq has announced a strategic partnership with Kraken’s parent company Payward to build an “equities transformation gateway” that will allow listed company shares to be tokenized and traded on blockchain networks alongside traditional markets, with a target go‑live in the first half of 2027 pending regulatory approvals. Under the plan, Nasdaq’s new equity token design will enable stocks listed on its markets to exist in token form while Kraken’s xStocks infrastructure will serve as the primary settlement layer and conduit between regulated, permissioned markets and permissionless DeFi environments in eligible jurisdictions. According to Nasdaq’s March 2026 announcement, the equity token design is intended to let public issuers tokenize their shares without altering the existing rights structure of the underlying securities, preserving issuer control, regulatory compliance, and core shareholder rights while enabling programmability for functions like proxy voting, corporate actions, and governance. This builds on Nasdaq’s 2025 SEC filing proposing that equity securities, including issuer-sponsored tokens, could trade on its venues and settle in token form through DTCC, and aligns with the SEC’s 2026 staff statement that treats tokenized equities the same as traditional shares under federal securities law. In parallel, Kraken’s xStocks product—already offering tokenized exposure to U.S. equities and ETFs to non‑U.S. clients and surpassing $25 billion in total transaction volume, with more than $4 billion settled on‑chain—will be extended to act as the infrastructure layer that links Nasdaq’s regulated market infrastructure with open blockchain networks, allowing on‑chain movement and trading of tokenized equities 24/7 for eligible users while enforcing KYC/AML through Payward Services. The initiative is significant because it aims to bridge traditional capital markets and public blockchains at the exchange level rather than via third‑party synthetic products, potentially standardizing how tokenized equities are issued, traded, and governed across both permissioned and permissionless environments. For issuers, the model promises more direct control over tokenized shares and new ways to engage investors; for market participants, it could enable continuous, global trading and settlement of regulated equities on-chain, while still operating within the existing securities law and market infrastructure framework—subject to SEC approval and jurisdictional restrictions, notably that xStocks and the related services are not currently available to U.S. persons or in certain major markets such as the U.K.

AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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