Nasdaq and Kraken Partner to Tokenize Stocks on Blockchain

Nasdaq takes the plunge into tokenization with Kraken and Seturion

On March 9, 2026, Nasdaq announced a dual strategic partnership that could redefine the architecture of global financial markets. On one side, the American stock exchange giant is partnering with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, to develop an Equities Transformation Gateway connecting traditional equity markets to blockchain networks. On the other, Nasdaq is entering an agreement with Seturion, the tokenized settlement platform of the Boerse Stuttgart Group, to build a pan-European trading and settlement infrastructure for tokenized assets.

These announcements do not exist in isolation. Just days earlier, ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), made a strategic investment in crypto platform OKX, valuing it at $25 billion. Within the span of a single week, three of the world’s largest stock exchanges concluded major agreements with crypto ecosystem players. The convergence between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance is no longer a hypothesis: it is an industrial reality under construction.

How does the Nasdaq-Kraken gateway work?

The principle of stock tokenization

Stock tokenization involves creating a digital representation of a financial security on a blockchain. Each token represents a real share, held in reserve by a regulated custodian. The token holder enjoys exactly the same rights as a traditional shareholder: voting rights at general meetings, dividend payments, and identical valuation.

Under the Nasdaq-Kraken partnership, tokenized shares are backed 1:1 by conventional stocks listed on the Nasdaq. Settlement is carried out through the Depository Trust Company (DTC), the central US depository, ensuring full interchangeability between both formats. A tokenized Apple share has strictly the same value and the same rights as a traditional Apple share.

The role of xStocks

Kraken is not starting from scratch. Its xStocks tokenization framework, launched in mid-2025, has already accumulated $25 billion in total transaction volume, including $4 billion settled directly on-chain. The platform has over 85,000 unique holders and offers more than 70 tokenized stocks and ETFs, accessible from as little as one dollar thanks to fractional ownership.

xStocks trading operates 24/5 on Kraken and 24/7 directly on-chain. Dividends are automatically distributed as additional tokens, without manual intervention. This proven operational model will serve as the technical foundation for the new gateway developed with Nasdaq.

The Equities Transformation Gateway

The gateway jointly developed by Nasdaq and Payward is designed to create interoperability between regulated markets (known as “permissioned”) and public blockchain networks (known as “permissionless”). In practice, clients in eligible jurisdictions will be able to convert their tokenized shares between a regulated market environment and the DeFi ecosystem, while preserving price integrity and issuer rights.

Tal Cohen, President of Nasdaq, stated: “Tokenization has the potential to unlock the benefits of an always-on financial ecosystem, while ensuring that listed companies remain at the center of the equities market ecosystem.” Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, added that “tokenization improves market infrastructure at the asset layer by enabling equities to exist as interoperable instruments” between regulated systems and blockchain networks.

Seturion: the European component of Nasdaq’s strategy

A pan-European settlement infrastructure

Alongside the US agreement with Kraken, Nasdaq announced a partnership with Seturion, the tokenized settlement platform operated by the Boerse Stuttgart Group, Germany’s fourth-largest stock exchange. Launched in September 2025, Seturion aims to build a unified issuance and settlement infrastructure for the European capital market.

The goal is to solve one of the structural problems of European markets: the fragmentation of post-trade infrastructure. Unlike the United States, where the DTC centralizes settlement, Europe has dozens of national central securities depositories (CSDs) that communicate poorly with each other. Seturion proposes to replace these silos with an open architecture based on blockchain, compatible with both public and private ledgers.

Dr. Matthias Voelkel, CEO of the Boerse Stuttgart Group, described Nasdaq as the “absolute leader in its field” and first network partner, emphasizing that this partnership would help overcome “the silos of national settlement infrastructures.”

European regulatory compliance

A crucial aspect of Seturion is its compliance with existing European regulatory frameworks. The platform is compatible with MiFID II (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) and the DLT Pilot Regime, the European regulatory framework governing the use of distributed ledger technology in market infrastructure. Transactions can be settled in central bank money or on-chain cash.

The initial focus is on structured products, with a gradual expansion to other asset classes. Roland Chai, of Nasdaq, described tokenization as a mechanism to “improve settlement while maintaining regulatory rigor and market stability,” articulating a “vision for the future of market infrastructure, encompassing continuous operation across trading, clearing, settlement, risk management, and collateral.”

A fundamental shift: TradFi embraces blockchain

The week that changed everything

Nasdaq’s announcement does not occur in a vacuum. Within the span of one week in early March 2026, three major partnerships between traditional exchanges and crypto players were concluded. In addition to the dual Nasdaq-Kraken and Nasdaq-Seturion agreements, ICE (owner of the NYSE) made a strategic investment in OKX for a deal covering tokenized stocks and crypto derivatives. This concentration of announcements signals a tipping point in the institutional adoption of blockchain.

The booming RWA market

Stock tokenization is part of the broader movement of Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization. The tokenized real-world assets market exceeded $29 billion in on-chain assets under management in 2025, with nearly fivefold growth over three years. Analyst projections vary: McKinsey estimates the market at $2 trillion by 2030, while Standard Chartered projects $30 trillion by 2034.

Financial heavyweights are already in motion. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, launched in partnership with Securitize, offers tokenized exposure to short-term US Treasury bonds on Ethereum. JP Morgan is developing “deposit tokens,” a digital representation of commercial bank money. And CoinDesk projects that tokenized stocks, funds, and gold could represent a $400 billion market as early as 2026.

The regulatory framework is clearing up

Nasdaq’s initiative builds on a regulatory foundation under construction. In September 2025, Nasdaq filed with the SEC a proposal allowing equity securities to be traded and settled in token form via the DTCC. The SEC published a statement in 2026 (Staff Statement on Tokenized Securities) clarifying that tokenized securities fall under the same federal legal framework as traditional securities. In Europe, the DLT Pilot Regime provides a regulatory framework for market infrastructure based on distributed ledgers.

This regulatory evolution is a decisive factor. As long as financial authorities did not provide clear guidelines, traditional institutions remained on the sidelines. The convergence between regulatory easing and technological advances is creating a window of opportunity that Nasdaq, ICE, and their peers are now exploiting at full speed.

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Stakes and implications for investors

For retail investors, stock tokenization promises several concrete advantages. Fractional ownership allows purchasing fractions of shares starting from one dollar, making high-priced stocks accessible. Continuous trading (24/7 on-chain) eliminates the constraint of stock exchange hours. And the automation of dividends and voting through smart contracts simplifies portfolio management.

However, questions remain. Geographic availability will be limited initially: Kraken’s xStocks are currently not accessible to US or UK residents. The Nasdaq gateway launch is scheduled for the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approval. And the coexistence of two formats for the same security — traditional and tokenized — could create complexities in terms of taxation and accounting, depending on the jurisdiction.

The question of liquidity also deserves attention. While xStocks volumes ($25 billion total) are encouraging, they remain modest compared to the $25 trillion market capitalization of the traditional Nasdaq. For tokenization to deliver on its promises of continuous trading and instant settlement, a sufficient number of market participants will need to adopt the tokenized format, thereby creating the order book depth necessary for efficient transactions.

It is also important to distinguish stock tokenization, which represents existing real securities, from the creation of new digital assets. Nasdaq‘s tokenized stocks are not cryptocurrencies: they are traditional stocks whose record-keeping medium changes, moving from a centralized registry to a blockchain. This distinction is fundamental to understanding the associated risk, which is equity market risk, not crypto volatility risk.

Nasdaq’s move, combined with those of ICE and European exchanges, marks a structural turning point. The question is no longer whether traditional finance will adopt blockchain, but how quickly this transition will occur. With a tokenized RWA market experiencing exponential growth and a regulatory framework becoming clearer on both sides of the Atlantic, the tokenization of financial markets now appears irreversible.

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