Update April 14, 12:39 pm UTC: This article was updated to include a comment from a Kraken spokesperson.
Deutsche Börse said Tuesday it will invest $200 million in Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, acquiring a 1.5% fully diluted stake via a secondary share purchase. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close in the second quarter.
The investment deepens the strategic partnership as Deutsche Börse expands into digital assets, backing the exchange operator’s plans to offer broader access to blockchain-based securities and tokenized investment products.
On Dec. 4, 2025, Deutsche Börse and Kraken agreed to enhance institutional access to regulated crypto products, including spot trading, tokenized markets and derivatives, and to integrate Kraken-backed xStocks into Deutsche Börse’s 360X digital asset infrastructure. The collaboration aims to produce new offerings across trading, custody, settlement, collateral management and tokenized assets.
A Kraken spokesperson told Cointelegraph the transaction was a secondary sale of existing shares and said the partnership intends to bring crypto and traditional finance closer as ‘a single, cohesive infrastructure for institutional clients,’ rather than operating as parallel systems.
Kraken is among the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap. In November 2025 the company said it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO, following an $800 million fundraising that valued the firm at about $20 billion.
The deal follows a wider trend of traditional financial institutions increasing crypto exposure. Recent examples include Nasdaq’s March 9 partnership with Kraken and Backed to develop an equities transformation gateway; Intercontinental Exchange’s investment in OKX to bring NYSE-listed tokenized stocks to that exchange starting in Q2 2026; and CME Group’s rollouts of futures tied to Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar, with later plans to list futures for Avalanche and Sui, all subject to regulatory approval.
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