Nasdaq Buys LeveL Markets ATS to Anchor Always-On Strategy

Nasdaq has agreed to acquire the equity interests it does not already own in LeveL Markets, the third-largest US alternative trading system by volume, folding the off-exchange venue into a newly created Digital Liquidity Networks unit that houses the exchange operator's digital assets and tokenisation ambitions. The deal, announced on 11 August 2026, converts a five-year minority stake into full ownership of an ATS that processes hundreds of millions of shares a day and connects more than 2,500 buy-side and sell-side clients. Terms were not disclosed, and the transaction remains subject to regulatory approvals before closing.

What is Nasdaq actually buying?

The target is a scaled institutional plumbing asset rather than a growth-stage bet. LeveL Markets runs a registered ATS that executes across more than 7,000 symbols daily and reaches over 300 institutional buy-side firms through more than 15 order and execution management system integrations. Average daily volume grew 56 per cent year on year in 2025, according to figures supplied by the two companies and not independently audited.

The current entity is itself the product of consolidation. LeveL ATS, a sell-side dark pool founded in 2006 by a consortium of banks, merged with the buy-side block venue Luminex Trading & Analytics in March 2022. That combination unified two distinct liquidity networks under a single broker-dealer, backed by a shareholder roster that already included Bank of America, Citi, Fidelity Investments, BlackRock and Nasdaq itself. Nasdaq's move to full ownership is therefore less a new relationship than the endgame of a position it began building when it took a minority stake in 2021.

Why does an exchange operator want a dark pool?

The strategic logic sits in the growth of off-exchange trading. Alternative trading systems and other off-exchange venues now handle roughly 40 per cent or more of US equity volume, up from around 15 per cent in 2008, with the majority of consolidated tape activity now printing away from lit exchanges. For an operator whose core equity franchise is its lit market, owning a large ATS is a hedge against the structural drift of institutional flow into the dark.

Nasdaq has framed the purchase around "always-on markets," its shorthand for infrastructure that supports continuous trading and converging traditional and digital venues. Company president Tal Cohen described LeveL Markets as bringing scale, connectivity and institutional relationships that support the group's longer-term growth strategy. The commercial reality underneath the language is straightforward: LeveL gives Nasdaq a footprint in the fastest-growing segment of US equity execution, and a set of buy-side integrations that are expensive and slow to build from scratch.

What is Digital Liquidity Networks?

The more consequential part of the announcement may be organisational. Nasdaq is placing LeveL Markets inside a new Digital Liquidity Networks organisation that pulls together the company's liquidity platforms, tokenisation capabilities and financial technology serving the digital assets ecosystem. The unit will be led by Roland Chai, who has run Nasdaq's European Market Services since 2023 and has led its digital assets strategy since early 2026.

The structure signals where Nasdaq expects competitive pressure to come from. By housing a conventional equity ATS alongside tokenisation infrastructure, the group is positioning itself for a market in which cash equities, digital assets and tokenised securities are traded and settled through shared rails. That thesis is not unique to Nasdaq. DTCC has run tokenised settlement pilots, and crypto-native operators have moved into regulated securities infrastructure, most visibly in Bullish's acquisition of transfer agent Equiniti earlier this year. Nasdaq's approach is to graft digital ambitions onto proven, revenue-generating market structure rather than build a parallel stack.

To free Chai for the new role, Nikolaj Kosakewitsch succeeds him as head of European Market Services, effective immediately. A successor as president of Nasdaq Copenhagen will be named later.

What changes for LeveL Markets clients?

In the near term, very little, by design. LeveL Markets will keep its own management team, remain a registered ATS under FINRA oversight, and preserve the structural separateness and participant confidentiality that institutional clients depend on when routing large orders. CEO Steve Miele indicated that full ownership by Nasdaq gives the venue greater capacity to invest in its platform and expand across asset classes and geographies. LeveL's existing connectivity into Europe and Canada through its LeveL Connect gateway gives Nasdaq an additional cross-border hook.

The open question is whether ownership by a lit-market operator sits comfortably with a client base that uses dark pools precisely to avoid signalling to exchanges. Nasdaq's stated commitment to operational separation is aimed squarely at that concern, and its execution on it will determine whether the 2,500-client network stays intact through the transition.

Why This Matters to FinanceX Readers

This is an incumbent exchange operator buying its way deeper into the off-exchange market that has been eroding lit-venue share for over a decade, and using the acquisition to stand up a digital assets and tokenisation unit in the same move.

For investors in exchange operators, the read is that Nasdaq sees continuous, multi-asset market infrastructure, not the traditional listings-and-lit-trading model, as the growth engine for the next cycle.

For buy-side traders, the practical watch item is execution continuity and confidentiality at LeveL under new ownership.

For anyone tracking tokenisation, the creation of Digital Liquidity Networks is a clearer statement of institutional intent than most standalone pilots, because it ties the digital roadmap to a cash-generating equity venue rather than a speculative build.