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Kraken Parent Payward Agrees to Acquire Bitnomial for $550 Million

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Kraken Parent Payward Agrees to Acquire Bitnomial for $550 Million

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has agreed to acquire Chicago-based Bitnomial for up to $550 million in a mix of cash and stock.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. It would give Kraken a complete, CFTC-regulated derivatives stack that Bitnomial built over more than a decade.

What Kraken Gains From the Bitnomial Deal

Bitnomial operates three core entities under CFTC oversight. These include a designated contract market (DCM), a derivatives clearing organization (DCO), and a futures commission merchant (FCM) brokerage. Together, they form one of the only fully crypto-native, regulated derivatives stacks in the US.

The exchange has introduced several firsts to the US market. Its products include CFTC-regulated perpetual futures, physically settled Bitcoin (BTC) options, and leveraged retail spot crypto trading.

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Bitnomial also allows traders to use crypto as margin collateral and settlement.

For Payward, the acquisition extends an aggressive infrastructure buildout. The company previously acquired NinjaTrader and Small Exchange to expand its derivatives capabilities.

A recent $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse Group valued Payward at roughly $13.3 billion.

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Why This Deal Matters

The acquisition reflects a broader consolidation trend in crypto. Exchanges are prioritizing regulatory licenses and clearing infrastructure over front-end trading volume as competitive advantages.

As institutional demand for compliant US crypto derivatives grows, firms that control settlement and clearing rails may hold a structural edge.

How quickly Payward integrates Bitnomial’s technology and team with Kraken and NinjaTrader will shape the near-term payoff of this $550 million bet.

The post Kraken Parent Payward Agrees to Acquire Bitnomial for $550 Million appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Crypto World

French Finance Minister Backs Euro-Pegged Stablecoins in Response to US

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French Finance Minister Backs Euro-Pegged Stablecoins in Response to US

Roland Lescure, France’s finance minister, backed an initiative by European banks to launch a euro-pegged stablecoin in 2026 to compete with US dollar-backed tokens, which currently dominate the market.

According to a Friday Reuters report, Lescure supported the euro-pegged Qivalis stablecoin plan launched in September 2025 by EU banks, including Dutch lender ING and Italy’s UniCredit.

The goal of the banks was to create a stablecoin in compliance with the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework; the MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin is expected to be launched in the second half of 2026.

“That is ‌what ⁠we need, and that is what we want,” said Lescure, according to Reuters. “I also strongly encourage banks to further explore the launch of tokenized deposits.”

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EU banks are collaborating to create an alternative to the US-dominated stablecoin market, led by Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC). As of Friday, USDT had a market capitalization of about $186 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Related: SocGen brings MiCA-compliant USDCV dollar stablecoin to MetaMask

Lescure, who reportedly made the comments in a pre-recorded message, said the relatively small volume of euro-pegged stablecoins compared to dollar-pegged ​ones was “not satisfactory.”

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Speaking at the World Economic Forum in January, Banque de France Governor François Villeroy de Galhau said that tokenization and stablecoins were likely to be “the name of the game” in 2026, highlighting benefits of blockchain infrastructure for finance.

However, he opposed interest-bearing stablecoins, claiming that they could destabilize financial systems, a criticism shared by several EU and US policy makers, as well as central bank officials, as stablecoin yield continues to be a contentious regulatory topic.

Stablecoin yield is still an issue in US market structure talks

As of Friday, lawmakers in the US Senate had not announced any compromise that would allow a crypto market structure bill to move closer to a vote.

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The CLARITY Act, a crypto market structure bill that passed in the US House of Representatives in July, has been stalled amid disagreements on how to address stablecoin yield, tokenized equities, ethics and other concerns.

Magazine: Will the CLARITY Act be good — or bad — for DeFi?