Payward, a unified financial infrastructure platform advancing an open, global financial system, today announced the completion of its acquisition of Bitnomial, the first fully CFTC-licensed derivatives company in the United States built for digital assets.Payward now owns the complete US derivatives stack – a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), a Designated Contract Market (DCM), and a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) – built over more than a decade with digital asset markets as the design basis. This is the foundation that enables Payward to bring CFTC-regulated spot margin, perpetuals and options to eligible US clients on Kraken and NinjaTrader.The acquisition, which was first announced on April 17, 2026, completes a multi-year build-out of regulated derivatives infrastructure across Payward's major markets, following the acquisition of the first licensed crypto futures platform in the UK in 2019 and the launch of a regulated EU derivatives offering in 2025."Closing this deal brings a regulated US derivatives stack to Payward, its client and partners. A broker, exchange, clearinghouse purpose-built for digital assets, not adapted to them," said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken. "That stack is what makes the next set of products possible. We’re starting with spot margin on Kraken, with perpetuals and options to follow. All under CFTC regulation, all in the US."Bitnomial will continue to operate within the Payward group, with its existing licenses, regulatory structure and third-party businesses intact. Payward plans to scale Bitnomial's team and operations as it builds out its US derivatives capabilities. Through Payward Services, the company’s B2B infrastructure platform, the acquisition opens a new channel for partners, including fintechs, banks, brokerages, and payment providers, to offer regulated U.S. derivatives to their own end clients via a single integration, alongside existing capabilities across crypto trading, tokenized equities, staking, and on/off-ramps.NoYesCryptocurrencies04 May, 2026