Nasdaq Invests US$100 Million In Kraken Parent Payward

Nasdaq has invested US$100 million in Payward, the parent company that owns cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. The transaction was the lead item in a daily roundup of news spanning brokers, trading platforms, digital assets and financial regulation.

The deal brings together a listed exchange operator and a crypto-native trading venue. Payward serves as the holding company behind Kraken, one of the larger venues in the digital-asset market, while Nasdaq is best known as a global equities and derivatives exchange group. The investment deepens the crossover between traditional market infrastructure and crypto trading businesses.

Broker and platform updates

The same roundup flagged several other company developments. Broker iFOREX revised its first-half earnings estimate lower, while AvaTrade confirmed it is closing its Poland office. Trading technology provider Devexperts is targeting brokers in South Korea, and charting platform TradingView added MCP support aimed at AI tools.

On the regulatory and product side, the US Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, a piece of legislation relevant to digital-asset market structure. Interactive Brokers linked X Cashtags to trading, allowing users of the social platform to move from a ticker reference toward order execution. Match-Trade introduced a seven-day prop firm launch package under the Match-Prop name.

The recap also touched on a Revolut KYC data incident and the shutdown of crypto exchange CoinEx, alongside Anthropic's push into financial services.

For Kraken's parent, the Nasdaq investment represents fresh backing from an established exchange group at a time when crypto venues and traditional market operators are increasingly competing for the same institutional and retail order flow.