Payward announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Bitnomial for up to $550 million in cash and stock, in a transaction that values Payward’s equity at $20 billion.
The acquisition brings together Bitnomial’s fully licensed U.S. derivatives infrastructure with Payward’s global distribution, liquidity, and multi-brand ecosystem, including Kraken and NinjaTrader. The combined platform is expected to create one of the most comprehensively regulated and vertically integrated digital asset derivatives offerings in the United States.
Bitnomial is the first crypto-native exchange in the U.S. to hold all three licenses issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission required to operate a full-stack derivatives business, covering exchange, clearinghouse, and brokerage functions. The company has spent more than a decade building this regulatory and technical foundation, including infrastructure for crypto settlement, collateral, and continuous 24/7 trading.
For Payward, the transaction provides immediate access to a regulated derivatives framework that would otherwise take years to replicate. The company plans to expand its U.S. product offering to include spot margin, perpetual futures, and options under CFTC oversight, strengthening its position in the rapidly evolving digital asset market.
The acquisition also enhances Payward’s B2B platform, Payward Services, enabling partners such as fintechs, banks, and brokerages to offer regulated U.S. derivatives products through a single API integration. This expands Payward’s ability to serve both institutional and retail clients with a unified financial infrastructure spanning trading, payments, staking, and tokenized assets.
The deal builds on Payward’s broader global derivatives strategy, which includes prior expansion into regulated markets in the United Kingdom and European Union. The company continues to engage with policymakers to support regulatory clarity and innovation in digital asset markets.
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory requirements.
KEY QUOTES
“The shape of a market is determined by its clearing infrastructure, not its front end. 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. 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. That is the regulated foundation we are adding to Payward, starting with spot margin, perpetuals, and options for US clients under CFTC regulation.”
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO, Payward And Kraken
“Bitnomial was built on a simple conviction: that the future of derivatives is digital-asset-native, and that the US should lead it, not follow it. That’s why we built our exchange and clearinghouse from the ground up for crypto, and it’s why Bitnomial has been first on nearly every meaningful capability: the first-ever US perpetual futures, the first CFTC-regulated crypto margin collateral, native crypto settlement, and a unified book across spot, futures, options, and perpetuals. These are things adapted legacy infrastructure simply can’t retrofit. That same foundation is what makes the next generation of derivatives possible: crypto-settled products, tokenized assets, and eventually the kind of continuous, capital-efficient contracts that have transformed global markets. Joining Payward means we can now build that future at the scale it deserves.”
Luke Hoersten, Founder And CEO, Bitnomial
