BNY in talks with Kraken parent Payward on digital asset deal

BNY is in talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, over a partnership covering digital assets and traditional financial-market infrastructure, Cryptobriefing reported, citing a CoinDesk article and people familiar with the discussions. The talks, disclosed on Oct. 2, 2026, concern possible cooperation across custody, trading, payments, wealth management and financial infrastructure delivered through Payward Services, the group’s business-to-business platform for banks, exchanges and asset managers.

Crypto.news separately reported that two people familiar with the matter described the discussions as covering six areas. Neither outlet said a deal is assured.

Key facts

• BNY and Payward are discussing crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and infrastructure, with talks still in progress, according to Cryptobriefing and Crypto.news.
• Nasdaq Ventures agreed in September to invest $100 million in Payward, nine days before the BNY talks surfaced, expanding work on Nasdaq Equity Tokens with a launch targeted for the second quarter of 2027.
• Payward will connect Nasdaq’s tokenized equities framework with its xStocks infrastructure and adopt Nasdaq’s market-surveillance technology across its trading venues.
• Payward reported $508 million in adjusted revenue for its second quarter, up 17% year over year, with $23 million in adjusted EBITDA and a platform transaction volume of $310 billion, down 18%.
• Payward completed its Bitnomial acquisition on May 1 and its Reap stablecoin payments purchase on July 1, after the Reap deal was announced at $600 million.

Structure of the talks

The people briefed on the discussions described a potential relationship across several business lines rather than a single crypto product. BNY, formerly Bank of New York Mellon, provides custody, asset servicing, clearing and wealth management to institutional clients, and its digital cash program already involves institutional clients and financial-market infrastructure providers.

One person familiar with the talks said parts of any agreement could resemble Payward’s infrastructure arrangement with Nasdaq. That model ties Payward’s crypto-native rails to a venue operator’s market structure rather than a one-off listing.

The detail reported by Crypto.news that the talks cover six areas—rather than the broader catalogue Cryptobriefing described—is the clearest guide to scope so far. Cryptobriefing did not tally the areas; Crypto.news did. The two accounts otherwise agree on the substance.

Payward’s recent dealmaking

Payward has broadened beyond Kraken’s original spot venue to derivatives, tokenized equities, custody, staking, payments and traditional securities. Its May 2025 purchase of Bitnomial closed on May 1, 2026, adding a designated contract market, a derivatives clearing organization and a futures commission merchant. The Reap acquisition closed on July 1. In September, Payward announced agreement with SoFi covering banking, payments, liquidity and digital assets, including access to Kraken Prime and SoFi’s real-time settlement network. It had said in March that xStocks passed $25 billion in transaction volume, with more than $4 billion onchain. Its second-quarter results, published Aug. 14, showed the revenue gain, the EBITDA figure and the volume decline reported by Crypto.news. Nasdaq Ventures’ $100 million investment was put at a reported $21 billion valuation, a figure Crypto.news attributed to Bloomberg sourcing.

Why it matters

A custody bank of BNY’s size moving toward crypto infrastructure is a different event from a crypto firm chasing a bank client. It signals that tokenized-collateral and always-on settlement workflows—which BNY has already been developing—could be plugged into a crypto-native platform. The pattern echoes the Nasdaq arrangement: the venue operator supplies the market structure, the crypto company supplies the onchain rails and surveillance glue. For institutional clients, a deal would mean fewer separate integrations between traditional safeguards and tokenized assets. The talks also sit against Payward’s June-quarter decline in transaction volume, which the new partnerships would do little to fix in the near term.

What to watch

Whether the talks convert into a signed agreement, and on what scope. Nasdaq Equity Tokens remain targeted for the second quarter of 2027, with Nasdaq and Payward still working on the distribution, trading and post-trade stack and on preserving investor protections and issuer rights. BNY’s deposit-tokenization program, disclosed on Jan. 9 and running on a private, permissioned blockchain for collateral and margin workflows, will show how far the bank’s internal build shifts toward external partners.

This is not financial advice. Digital-asset and equity markets are volatile and outcomes are uncertain; readers should do their own research.

Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.

Sources: Crypto Briefing, Crypto.news