Kraken's parent company to acquire CFTC-regulated exchange Bitnomial

Payward, the parent company of the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Friday that it has entered into a “definitive agreement” to acquire Bitnomial, a US-licensed cryptocurrency and derivatives exchange; the deal values Bitnomial’s equity at $20 billion.

Bitnomial is the “first” crypto-native exchange in the United States to hold all three regulatory licenses from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage permits, according to Payward’s announcement.

“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. He added:

“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 will use Bitnomial’s infrastructure to offer spot margin trading, perpetual futures contracts and options trading for US clients, the company said.

Source: Kraken

Payward’s business clients can also integrate crypto services for their users, including spot crypto trading, tokenized stocks, crypto derivatives and fiat onramps through Payward Services, an application programming interface (API).

The announcement follows Kraken’s expansion into tokenized stocks, tokenized perpetual futures trading and the company securing a limited-purpose account with the United States Federal Reserve, a first for the crypto industry.

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