Payward, the parent company of the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, has agreed to acquire Bitnomial, a US-licensed crypto and derivatives exchange. The deal values Bitnomial's equity at $20 billion.
Bitnomial is noted as the first crypto-native exchange in the United States to hold all three regulatory licenses from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC): exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage permits.
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, stated that Bitnomial has built critical infrastructure for digital assets, including settlement, collateral, and 24/7 markets, capabilities not easily retrofitted onto legacy systems.
Payward plans to leverage Bitnomial's infrastructure to offer spot margin trading, perpetual futures contracts, and options trading to US clients. Business clients will also gain access to crypto services via Payward Services API, including spot trading, tokenized stocks, derivatives, and fiat onramps.
This acquisition follows Kraken's recent expansions into tokenized stocks and futures, as well as securing a limited-purpose account with the Federal Reserve, a first for a crypto firm.