Nasdaq Records Highest Ever Cash Earnings from Stocks and Derivatives Trade
Nasdaq Shines in Q2 2025 with Growth and Innovation
In the second quarter of 2025, Nasdaq demonstrated impressive growth and innovation, particularly in the areas of AI and digital assets.
The exchange reported strong financial results, with a net revenue of $1.3 billion, a 13% increase year-over-year. This growth was driven by robust demand in Financial Technology (FinTech) and analytics.
Nasdaq introduced AI-powered digital workers specifically for anti-money laundering (AML) processes. These digital workers are designed to enhance compliance and operational efficiency. In FinTech, Nasdaq achieved notable client expansion, with 130 upsells and 7 cross-sells, reflecting solid adoption of its solutions amid dynamic market conditions.
Though Nasdaq itself did not explicitly announce a digital asset platform, a related Q2 2025 development by Fiserv — a collaborator and competitor in financial technology — involved plans for a digital asset platform to enable banks and merchants to access stablecoins via a simple, secure interface. This indicates a broader industry move toward digital asset infrastructure in which Nasdaq is likely engaged or aligned.
Nasdaq continues to focus on growing its exposure to institutional clients in the insurance annuity space. The exchange saw the highest level of new issuances in the first six months of 2025 since the first half of 2021.
The digital assets ecosystem is maturing, and Nasdaq is focusing on supporting institutional adoption. The exchange is heavily engaged with U.S regulators and legislators as they put together a market structure bill for digital assets.
In terms of operational efficiency, the Digital Sanctions Analyst, part of Nasdaq Verafin's Agentic AI workforce, can reduce alert review workload requiring human intervention by more than 80%.
Nasdaq's U.S. exchanges achieved record cash equities volumes, leading to an increase in the exchange's second quarter net revenue to $1.3 billion. The platform provides real-time data and valuation insights to investors.
Index exchange-traded product assets under management was a record $745bn at quarter-end. During the Russell reconstitution, Nasdaq's Closing Cross successfully executed 2.5 billion shares in 0.871 seconds, representing a record $102.5 billion in notional value.
In addition, Nasdaq became the exclusive distributor of Nasdaq Private Market's Tape D(R) API in the second quarter of 2025.
Over the trailing twelve months, there were $88bn of net inflows, with $20bn in the second quarter of 2025. Nasdaq exchanges in Europe had 10 new listings which raised five times more capital than the first half of last year. The exchange also launched 33 new index products in the second quarter of 2025, including 21 international products and 12 products in partnership with new index clients.
In summary, Nasdaq's Q2 2025 innovation in AI centers on operational automation such as AI digital workers for AML, while its FinTech growth suggests ongoing enhancement of technology and analytics platforms. The digital asset field around Nasdaq’s ecosystem is expanding, demonstrated by adjacent industry developments in stablecoin access and blockchain protocols.
[1] Nasdaq Press Release, "Nasdaq Reports Second Quarter 2025 Results", July 2025. [2] Fiserv Press Release, "Fiserv Announces Plans for Digital Asset Platform", August 2025. [3] Ocean Protocol Blog Post, "The Future of Data Sharing for AI", June 2025.
- Nasdaq's growth and innovation in Q2 2025, emphasized in areas like AI and digital assets, also encompassed the development of AI-powered digital workers for anti-money laundering (AML) processes, designed to improve compliance and operational efficiency.
- The exchange saw robust demand for its technology and analytics platforms, resulting in solid client expansion in FinTech, with 130 upsells and 7 cross-sells.
- While Nasdaq did not announce a digital asset platform, Fiserv, a collaborator in financial technology, did unveil plans for a digital asset platform to enable banks and merchants secure access to stablecoins. This may indicate a broader industry move toward digital asset infrastructure involving Nasdaq.
- In addition to expansion in the digital asset field, Nasdaq continued to focus on growing its presence in the insurance annuity space, experiencing the highest level of new issuances since the first half of 2021.
- Engaging with U.S regulators and legislators in shaping a market structure bill for digital assets, Nasdaq demonstrates its active role in supporting institutional adoption of digital assets and innovations such as blockchain protocols.
