Kraken Parent Takes Tokenized Equities Global Across Asia and Europe

Kraken Parent Charts Global Course for Tokenized Stocks

Payward, the parent company behind crypto exchange Kraken, has partnered with fintech infrastructure firm GTN to bring tokenized stocks to international markets for the first time. The collaboration announced on Wednesday aims to extend xStocks—blockchain-based replicas of real company shares—across Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Europe, and South Korea. This represents a significant step toward making tokenized equities a truly global product, moving beyond the current U.S.-only asset base.

The xStocks Model and Current Performance

xStocks function as digital tokens, each representing and backed by a real company share maintained in regulated custody. The product line debuted in June 2025 with a focused catalog of U.S. equities and ETFs, but has since expanded to include over 500 tokenized assets. The platform has already processed more than $35 billion in cumulative transaction volume, demonstrating significant traction among international investors who can access the service—currently, xStocks remain unavailable to U.S. residents due to regulatory considerations.

Under the new arrangement, GTN contributes the regulated infrastructure necessary for trade execution, custody services, and asset record-keeping across multiple jurisdictions. Payward contributes its proprietary xStocks tokenization framework, enabling rapid deployment of international equities onto blockchain networks. According to Ankit Shah, GTN’s Global Head of FinTech, this partnership is designed to allow established financial institutions to expand into new markets and asset categories without requiring complete technological overhauls. The infrastructure developed through this collaboration can scale across more than 90 markets and support diverse instrument types.

The Broader Tokenization Landscape

Mark Greenberg, global head at Payward Services, highlighted a core motivation for the expansion: the historical balkanization of capital markets across different countries, currencies, and trading schedules represents a legacy infrastructure problem. Tokenization on blockchain networks can help dissolve these arbitrary boundaries and create more fluid global markets.

The xStocks expansion enters a competitive space already attracting major players. Robinhood has launched a tokenized equities offering, Coinbase has announced plans for tokenized assets, and Nasdaq has developed its own gateway for blockchain-based securities. The initiative is already live at the infrastructure level; distribution to institutional clients through GTN’s network will proceed once regulatory approvals are secured in each target market. The rollout begins with Hong Kong-listed stocks, expanding sequentially to UK, European, and South Korean equities. Future possibilities include tokenizing additional asset classes beyond equities, pending regulatory developments.

For the broader crypto market, this represents continued institutional embrace of blockchain technology for real-world assets—a development that strengthens the case for blockchain infrastructure as foundational to financial systems.

Source: Payward, via Decrypt. Not financial advice.