The Shape of a Market: The Case for Kraken
Alex values Payward at $20B as fairly priced for today's exchange business (8-9x revenue on $2.2B adjusted revenue in 2025), with downside anchored by the crypto-exchange floor. The asymmetric upside lies in three catalysts: Bitnomial's CFTC-licensed clearing business (where switching costs are significant once institutional firms connect), xStocks tokenized equities (already $320M+ AUM with the Nasdaq partnership expected H1 2027), and banking products via the Fed Master Account and Wyoming charter. No competitor combines all four capabilities, and executing this stack could unlock substantially higher value.