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InvestIndependently confirmed3 publishers2 min readPublished

Nasdaq pitches tokenized collateral as tens of billions in freed capital

Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said tokenizing collateral could free tens of billions of dollars tied up across the financial system. Quartz reported Nasdaq's venture arm committed $100 million to Kraken's parent Payward in September, with tokenized Nasdaq-listed stocks due in the second quarter of 2027.

The Investor · Invest desk

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What happened

  • Speaking at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore, Friedman said tokenizing Treasurys, equities and money market funds alongside the flow of money makes collateral 'very fluid.'
  • She tied the past year's jump in institutional interest to the US Genius Act's stablecoin framework, saying, 'If we can tokenize money, then we can tokenize the flow of capital.'
  • That institutional push is converging with retail investors' long demand for round-the-clock trading, a market Friedman said 'has been about 10 years ahead.'
  • Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi told CNBC that non-US firms want both tokenization and access to US capital markets, citing one with about $25 million in revenue seeking a way in.

Why it matters

  • constraint Because not every asset is liquid enough for continuous trading, by Friedman's own account, the fluid-collateral model covers a bank's most-traded holdings.
  • decision Committed capital and a named launch counterparty give tokenized Nasdaq-listed equities a launch date and a funded partner.
  • capability If settlement and collateral move onto shared rails, investors shut out of certain asset classes could reach them. That would widen the buyer base for those markets.

The $100 million Nasdaq's venture arm is putting into Payward, extending an existing equities-tokenization collaboration, builds toward a pool Friedman puts in the tens of billions [15][14][18]. Read "tens of billions" at its floor, call it $20 billion, and the commitment is at most half a percent of the prize [17].

Friedman was plain about which part is cheap. "The easiest part is the exchange infrastructure," she said [5]. The costly part is time. Institutions have long used the hours when markets close to patch systems and rebalance risk, and a 24/7 market takes those hours away [6]. Risk and collateral management then have to run without a break. "Everything has to be real time all the time," she said [7].

Nasdaq's answer is software it can sell. It has put digital agents inside its risk platform that for now only make recommendations, and Friedman said banks could later let them act directly [8]. "AI is critical for 24/7," she said [9]. So the $100 million is pointed at the half she calls easy, the exchange and distribution rails. The continuous-risk rebuild she calls hard is work she is pointing banks toward doing themselves, with Nasdaq's agents on offer.

This could go a few ways from here. The regulatory footing holds and tokenized collateral is genuinely usable around the launch. Or the continuous-risk machinery costs more and ships slower than the exchange layer, and the launch stays a pilot. Or demand concentrates in a handful of the most-traded instruments and tokenized collateral stays a corner of the book.

What to watch

  • Whether the tokenized-equity tokens actually launch in the second quarter of 2027 or slip into pilot.
  • Whether Nasdaq's risk agents move from making recommendations to acting directly for banks.
  • Which assets clear Friedman's 'liquid enough' bar for continuous 24/7 trading.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption18
Hype gap+45
Incentives75
Confidence60

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 15%
Operator
Operator 30%
Investor
Investor 55%
Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

  1. [1]

    Friedman spoke to CNBC's Joanna Ossinger at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore.

    ReportedSupported2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source
  2. [2]

    Friedman said institutional interest in tokenization has grown over the past year, pointing in part to the passage of the Genius Act in the US, which established a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

    ReportedSupportedSource: Adena Friedman2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source
  3. [3]

    If we can tokenize money, then we can tokenize the flow of capital.

    ReportedSupportedSource: Adena Friedman2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source

Sources

3 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.

  1. cnbc.com

    1 article · October 8, 2026

    Tokenization could unleash tens of billions of dollars in trapped capital, Nasdaq CEO says
  2. cryptobriefing.com

    1 article · October 8, 2026

    NASDAQ CEO: Blockchain tokenization to transform global finance, unlock billions
  3. qz.com

    1 article · October 9, 2026

    Nasdaq CEO says tokenizing collateral assets could free tens of billions in trapped capital

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