🥛 Nasdaq goes onchain with Kraken 🤯

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that hits harder than realizing the “Wall Street vs crypto” storyline just turned into a collab.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

✍️ Kraken & Nasdaq are bringing stocks onchain.
🎙️ The Milk Road AI Show: AI vs Humans: What Jobs Survive the Next 10 Years?
🍪 Gen Z is turning to crypto to catch up financially.

Alchemy is the blockchain infrastructure behind Robinhood, Polymarket, Stripe, and Coinbase Wallet. Get their free guide on banks & stablecoins here.

Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.

KRAKEN & NASDAQ ARE BRINGING STOCKS ONCHAIN (FOR REAL THIS TIME) 📊

When I saw the reaction to this news yesterday, I parroted the words of every one-night stand I’ve ever had:

“I thought it would be bigger.”

The news? Nasdaq just partnered with Kraken’s xStocks to build tokenized stocks and ETFs. 👇

Source: @krakenfx

These aren’t wrappers or synthetic mimics of stocks and ETFs - they're the real thing, onchain.

That’s massive! But as I mentioned: the excitement around the announcement just didn’t match my own…

So lemme play hype man for a second and lay out why this is a big deal:

Tokenized stocks have existed before.

FTX tried them... Mirror Protocol tried them...

But those stock tokens were synthetic. The issuers of the actual stock weren't involved.

Which meant all of the shareholder rights and protections that usually come with holding a stock weren’t in play.

It was the crypto equity equivalent of your mom making ‘Big Macs’ at home…

IT’S NOT THE SAME, MOM!

Source: Imgflip

This Nasdaq x Kraken partnership? It’s structurally different.

Here’s how…

FREE GUIDE ON STABLECOINS

Here’s a stat that might surprise you:

49% of financial institutions are already using stablecoins.

Yet most of the crypto audience still thinks this adoption is years away.

But Alchemy, the crypto infrastructure behind Stripe, Visa & Robinhood, just published a free guide on how banks are actually using stablecoins and tokenized deposits today.

Here’s what’s covered:

How banks generate revenue with stablecoins
Behind-the scenes look at how stablecoin payment rails work
The infrastructure stack powering stablecoins in production

If you want to understand where finance is heading, this FREE GUIDE is worth the read.

Get their free guide on banks & stablecoins here.

KRAKEN & NASDAQ ARE BRINGING STOCKS ONCHAIN (FOR REAL THIS TIME) (P2) 📊

Nasdaq is the issuer infrastructure that makes traditional stocks ‘real’.

Under this partnership, tokenized shares would:

Settle through existing systems.
Use the same identifiers as traditional equities.
Carry full shareholder rights including proxy voting.

All onchain.

So it's not a synthetic wrapper, but the actual equity - just on a blockchain.

What this unlocks:

Source: Milk Road

The launch timeline is H1 2027, pending SEC approval.

That's ambitious, but not unrealistic given recent tailwinds:

Four days ago, the Fed, OCC, and FDIC issued joint guidance explicitly covering tokenized securities on permissionless blockchains.

The regulatory runway is clearer now than it's ever been.

The two biggest hurdles to tokenized equities were always infrastructure and regulation.

Nasdaq just addressed the first one.

Regulators are addressing the second.

This is (say it with me now):

“BULLISH!”

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Looking to grow your business? KGeN ensures that your product reaches real users and drives real growth.**

The banks are mad about this one: the OCC just handed out national bank charters to crypto firms.

Man, it’s rough out there: Gen Z is turning to crypto and prediction markets to catch up financially.

Oil: The most important chart in the world - here’s what you need to know about the current situation…

Looking for an all-in-one DeFi control panel? Genius is an onchain trading terminal that combines charts, token data, and trading across 11+ blockchains in one place.

**this is partner content.