Kraken's xStocks adds more than 200 UK and EU stocks as assets top $1.1 billion

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, tokenized more than 200 stocks listed in the United Kingdom and European Union through its xStocks platform, the company said on Nov. 11.

Eligible users can trade the new tokens on Kraken and participating xStocks Alliance platforms, Cointelegraph reported. The tokens remain unavailable to investors in the UK. The batch includes tokenized shares of all 40 companies in Germany's DAX index, among them SAP, Siemens, Allianz and Deutsche Telekom.

The expansion is the first delivered under Payward's partnership with GTN, a brokerage infrastructure firm that handles execution and custody of the underlying shares, Decrypt reported. The companies announced the GTN partnership in July, when Payward said it planned to start with Hong Kong-listed stocks; hundreds of Hong Kong listings are now due in the coming weeks.

Like other xStocks, each token is backed one-to-one by the underlying share, which a regulated custodian holds for as long as the token trades, according to Payward. Kraken's risk disclosure says the tokens give holders exposure to the shares' performance without voting rights or legal claims to the underlying stock, Cointelegraph noted.

The launch takes xStocks past 1,500 tokenized stocks, ETFs and IPOs. Payward said the platform holds more than $1.1 billion in assets, has processed over $45 billion in total transaction volume and has more than 550,000 holders. Token Terminal data put xStocks' market capitalization at $1.1 billion, about 22% of the $4.9 billion in tokenized stocks the firm tracks, ranking it third behind Binance bStocks at $1.5 billion and Ondo Finance at $1.4 billion.

"A portfolio should not have borders or trading hours," said Mark Greenberg, Payward's chief commercial officer. "Tokenizing every other international market is the next step."

xStocks launched in June 2025 with US stocks and exchange-traded funds, and Payward cited more than 500 assets and nearly 200,000 holders when the GTN partnership was announced in July, Unchained reported. The tokens are issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey company, and Payward said they are not registered with any local securities regulator. Distribution and eligibility rules did not change with the Wednesday launch, so US persons cannot buy the new tokens either. "Over 200 UK and European listings onchain today is proof it works," Greenberg said in a statement.

The tokens trade on blockchains where xStocks already operate, including Solana, Ethereum and TON, and are offered in more than 110 markets, Decrypt reported. Deutsche Börse said in a separate Nov. 11 announcement that the tokens are available on its affiliated 360X platform, with 24-hour trading supported on select venues, Cointelegraph wrote.

The expansion also advances Payward's September agreement with the London Stock Exchange, under which Payward agreed to tokenize the 100 largest London-listed companies. Subject to regulatory approval, the exchange intends to list xStocks and begin trading them on LSE 24, its planned near-24-hour venue, in 2027.

Payward has been drawing interest from traditional exchanges. Nasdaq agreed to invest $100 million in the company at a $21 billion valuation in September, building on a March partnership to bring tokenized stocks to market in 2027, according to Decrypt. Deutsche Börse bought a $200 million stake in April.

The company has also agreed to buy derivatives exchange Bitnomial for $550 million and Lithuania's Saldo Bank as part of an EU push. In a post on X on Nov. 11, Payward called the UK and EU batch the first international launch for xStocks and said more markets would follow.

The first batch covers some of the most actively traded companies listed in the United Kingdom and the European Union, with more to be added on a rolling basis, the report says. UK investors still cannot buy the tokens under the current distribution rules, even though UK-listed shares such as HSBC and Shell are in the batch.