Kraken Parent Payward Bets Billions on Becoming a Full-Service Financial Infrastructure Firm

Payward, the parent company of global digital-asset exchange Kraken, is investing billions of dollars as it seeks to transform itself into a full-service financial infrastructure company.

CoinDesk reported on September 26 that Payward co-Chief Executive Officer Arjun Sethi said in an interview the company is pursuing a so-called "One Ledger" strategy to integrate trading, banking, asset management and institutional services on a single infrastructure.

To that end, Payward is pursuing large-scale mergers and acquisitions. After acquiring U.S. futures brokerage platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, it bought Bitnomial for $550 million to build out its derivatives infrastructure. It is also said to be in the final stages of acquiring a Europe-based bank.

The company is also expanding its partnerships with traditional finance. Nasdaq has invested $100 million in Payward, and the two companies are working toward launching tokenized stocks in the second quarter of 2027. The London Stock Exchange is also pursuing cooperation with Payward related to tokenized stock product xStocks.

Payward is also stepping up a business that offers external clients the financial infrastructure it built for Kraken.

Sethi said Payward is aiming to become a financial infrastructure company rather than remain simply a digital-asset exchange. The company plans to expand beyond tokenized stocks into structured products and credit products, he added.