Nasdaq Bought Into Kraken's Parent At $21 Billion

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Nasdaq's venture arm agreed Thursday to put $100 million into Payward, the company behind Kraken. Nine days earlier the London Stock Exchange said it wants to list Payward's xStocks and trade them on its own 24-hour venue. Deutsche Börse bought in back in April.

The valuation is $21 billion, Bloomberg reported ahead of the announcement, and the deal carries a second half that makes Payward a Nasdaq customer: Nasdaq surveillance technology goes into its crypto, equities, tokenized-equities, futures and options venues. Neither company disclosed the size of the stake or what the surveillance contract costs.

Payward is selling the same position to three competing exchange groups at once, and each of them is building its own route to tokenized equities. Nasdaq Equity Tokens are due in the second quarter of 2027, settled through xStocks everywhere except the U.S. and the UK. LSEG wants to trade those same xStocks in 2027. NYSE is building its own platform on private chains. Nasdaq now owns a piece of the distributor its rivals are also counting on.

Read more below!

WATCH

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CEFI

Nasdaq Invests $100 Million in Kraken Parent Payward

The $21 billion mark is a recovery. Payward raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation in November 2025 from Citadel Securities, Jane Street and DRW, then took a 33% markdown five months later when Deutsche Börse's $200 million priced it at roughly $13.3 billion. The Nasdaq round comes in 58% above that April price. Payward reported second-quarter adjusted revenue of $508 million, up 17% year-over-year, on $23 million of adjusted EBITDA, with platform volume down 18% to $310 billion and funded accounts up 42% to 6.6 million. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi confirmed in April that the company filed a confidential S-1 last November.

Nasdaq Invests $100 Million in Kraken Parent PaywardNasdaq Ventures agreed to put $100 million into Kraken's parent company, at a $21 billion valuation according to Bloomberg, and Payward will adopt Nasdaq's surveillance technology across its trading venues.thedefiant.io

Why this matters: Nasdaq owns equity in the venue that will settle its own tokenized shares abroad, and the London Stock Exchange plans to trade that same distributor's tokens in the same year.

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DEFI

U.S. Bank Issues Its Own Stablecoin On Stellar

U.S. Bank moved value between its North American and European entities using USBDC, a dollar-backed token it issued on Stellar, and the pilot tested minting, redemption, freezing and clawback alongside the payment. The bank has not said how much moved, what backs the token, where the reserves sit, or whether clients will get access. Stellar has been collecting this kind of customer: real-world asset balances on the network have grown faster than its DeFi markets, Franklin Templeton and DTCC are already building there, and 21 financial institutions committed to a joint stablecoin venture last week. XLM traded at $0.1828, down 3.1% on the day.

Why this matters: A federally regulated U.S. bank now issues its own token on a permissionless chain, with the freeze and clawback controls a supervisor would ask for built into the pilot.

TRADFI

MoneyGram's Stablecoin Visa Card Goes Live In Colombia

The MoneyGram Card is a virtual Visa that spends a stablecoin-backed dollar balance held in the MoneyGram app, live in Colombia and running on USDC at launch, with MGUSD planned. Crossmint runs the wallets, funds move over Stellar, and Rain connects the balance to Visa, the same stack Rain built for Western Union's Stablecard in August. MoneyGram listed this feature as coming soon in September 2025 and shipped it a year later on Visa only, with a physical card due late 2026. The card carries no monthly or purchase fee, plus an inactivity fee the product page names without quantifying.

Why this matters: Recipients who collected cash and left can now hold dollars in the app and spend them at Visa merchants, which keeps remittance money inside MoneyGram.

DEFI

Tether And Fasanara Seed A $400 Million Private Credit Fund

StableFund opens with $400 million from Tether and Fasanara Capital and targets up to $3 billion from third-party institutions. Fasanara manages the investments across its fintech lending network, runs about $6 billion and originates in more than 60 countries; Tether sources USDT-linked deals and provides settlement. The sponsors point the fund at a $5.7 trillion small-business financing gap, a figure the announcement does not source. USDT's circulating supply is $183.4 billion against $74.3 billion for USDC, and Tether is already the largest lender in crypto, ahead of Maple Finance.

Why this matters: Tether is turning USDT into the settlement rail for a loan book underwritten off-chain, which moves the largest stablecoin issuer into credit origination.

DEFI

Valinor Launches Tokenized BDC Fund On Superstate

The Valinor BDC Exposure Fund holds $4,995,148 across 499,157 shares of listed business development companies, charges 1.25% of average daily NAV on top of the fees those BDCs already charge, and gates redemptions at 7.5% of net asset value a day. None of those shares have been tokenized: the VBDC contract went live on Ethereum on Sept. 1 with zero supply and no transfers, and Superstate lists its DeFi integrations as coming soon. The wrapper also imports the discount, with Blue Owl trading 22% below its own loan marks and FS KKR 35% below.

Why this matters: Robert Leshner called it the first tokenized private credit fund usable in DeFi, and the token has no supply, no transfers and no DeFi integrations.