Nasdaq Invests $100M in Kraken Parent Payward

Jennifer Sanasie (0:00)

Nasdaq just announced a $100 million investment in Kraken's parent company, Payward. I'm joined now by Payward Chief Commercial Officer, Mark Greenberg. Hey, Mark.

Mark Greenberg (0:09)

Hey.

Jennifer Sanasie (0:09)

Congratulations.

Mark Greenberg (0:10)

Thanks, we're really excited, it's fantastic news.

Jennifer Sanasie (0:12)

I'm sure you are, $100 million is a very big number. Talk to us about what this enables for Payward and what it means for your partnership with Nasdaq.

Mark Greenberg (0:20)

Well, so first, as you said, we've had this partnership with Nasdaq for a while. We've been working with them on the Nasdaq Equity Tokens, which is about taking their traditional stocks and bringing them on chain in a permission structure, doing that in a way that fixes the infrastructure and all the challenges that we have with the current system today. So that's great news. We've also been working with them on X-Docs and trying to bring X-Docs and Nasdaq Equity Tokens together, making it really easy to go from one to the other.

That's where we started, but as we talked more and more with the Nasdaq team, we realized we shared this vision of open, global financial rails, and so more opportunities just came up. We started working with them on surveillance, we're working with them on a number of data items, we're working with them to continue to bring X-Docs to more markets, lots more to come potentially as well. Really exciting partnership, bringing the thesis that we collectively share, that tokenization is going to change the way financial markets work, and this is just more evidence of that.

Jennifer Sanasie (1:21)

Crypto markets move fast, you need research that keeps up. That's the stack. Grayscale's blog with sharp analysis from the team that's tracked digital assets since 2013 Head to grayscale.com/thestack.

Introducing RealFi, a smarter stable coin that's backed by real world assets. Join the Testnet now at realfi.co. It's interesting that you say there are a lot of shared goals and values because I think about this and I think for the audience at home, it feels like there's this inherent tension between the traditional exchanges and the exchanges that are building towards the future of finance, introducing new products like crypto, tokenized equities, that kind of thing. Talk to me about the conversations that you've had with Nasdaq and other establishments like the London Stock Exchange. You and I spoke about that recently.

Is there a tension there? Are these exchanges almost being forced into the future?

Or have they just not had the technology to really kind of see their future, bring that future of finance to life?

Mark Greenberg (2:25)

So I think we're starting to see a big shift. There was a time when, well, actually first, we were just a crypto exchange and we focused solely on crypto. First, the first shift is us and many others have moved towards being multi-asset, being multi-business line. We're really focused on banking and asset management and a lot more than just crypto trading.

Combine that with the fact that I think the tokenization is just the mainstream now and companies want to work with us on it. It's become a very important part of our business. We're no longer just Kraken or Kraken Pro or Krak or many of our different apps. We've been focused on building B2B services, letting folks take the amazing things we've built over the last 15 years and putting it into their apps and experience. Nasdaq is one of those stories around this, but it's only the beginning. I think we're going to see more and more companies that weren't in tokens and blockchain and crypto and tokenized equities and all these pieces slowly bring them into their apps and experiences. And we're really excited to help power that.

Jennifer Sanasie (3:29)

Now we recently learned that plans to IPO have been pushed to 2027 from Payward. I imagine this Nasdaq news doesn't change that at all. I imagine that it's been in the works for a while, but I gotta ask, does this news change that timeline at all?

Mark Greenberg (3:45)

I'm not allowed to talk about anything to do with the IPO. Obviously, we filed a confidential S1 and that's all I can share.

Jennifer Sanasie (3:53)

Mark, thanks so much for joining me today. Congratulations on the launch of this news and I'm sure we'll chat soon.

Mark Greenberg (3:58)

Thanks very much.

Jennifer Sanasie (3:59)

If you're serious about crypto investing, you need more than headlines. You need research you can trust. That's The Stack, the blog where Grayscale's research team breaks down what's actually driving digital assets. From Bitcoin and Ethereum to the emerging trends shaping what's next. No hype, just sharp analysis and insights from the team that's been navigating crypto markets since 2013