Payward, the parent company of Kraken, announced it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Bitnomial, a US-licensed cryptocurrency and derivatives exchange. The transaction values Bitnomial’s equity at $20 billion.
Bitnomial is the first crypto-native exchange in the United States to hold all three Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) licenses: exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage, Payward said.
“Settlement mechanics, margin models, and contract structures define what products can exist and who can access them. The US has had no clearing infrastructure built for digital assets,” Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said. “Bitnomial spent a decade building it: crypto settlement, crypto collateral, continuous 24/7 markets. These are capabilities that cannot be retrofitted onto legacy systems. They have to be built natively.”
Payward plans to use Bitnomial’s infrastructure to offer spot margin trading, perpetual futures contracts and options trading to US clients. The company also said business customers can integrate crypto services for their users via Payward Services, an API that supports spot trading, tokenized stocks, crypto derivatives and fiat onramps.
The announcement follows Kraken’s expansion into tokenized stocks and tokenized perpetual futures trading, and comes after the company secured a limited-purpose master account with the Federal Reserve — a first for a crypto firm. In March 2026, Kraken gained approval for a limited-purpose master account from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, giving it access to the Fed’s central payment system and enabling settlement of transactions directly through Fedwire. The account carries a one-year term and certain restrictions.
Kraken’s limited-purpose account resembles the “skinny” master accounts proposed by Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller and promoted by Senator Cynthia Lummis in 2025.
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