Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has tokenized more than 200 UK and EU-listed stocks through its xStocks framework, including HSBC, Shell, Rolls-Royce, LVMH and Airbus. The tokens went live on Wednesday for investors in the more than 110 markets where xStocks are sold, but not for investors in the UK, the home market of several of the biggest names on the list, Payward said.
What xStocks added
The first batch covers what Payward called 200-plus of the most actively traded companies listed in the UK and the European Union, with more to be added on a rolling basis. xStocks named LVMH, Rolls-Royce, HSBC, Airbus and SAP among them. Each token is backed 1:1 by the underlying share, which Payward said is bought when a token is issued and held at a regulated custodian for as long as the token trades.
The tokens trade on Kraken and on other platforms in what Payward calls the xStocks Alliance, and they sit on the same chains as existing xStocks, including Solana, Ethereum, TON, Ink and X Layer. GTN, a brokerage infrastructure firm, handles execution and custody of the underlying shares. Payward said that setup let it deploy hundreds of assets in a matter of weeks, and that hundreds of Hong Kong-listed stocks will follow in the coming weeks.
“A portfolio should not have borders or trading hours,” said Mark Greenberg, Payward’s chief commercial officer.
A second launch with Deutsche Börse
Payward put out a separate release on Wednesday saying xStocks now covers all 40 members of Germany’s DAX index, with SAP, Siemens, Allianz and Deutsche Telekom among the tokens available from day one. Those DAX tokens are also available on 360X, a Deutsche Börse company operating under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime, where other xStocks already trade.
Taken together, the two releases tie Payward to two of Europe’s biggest exchange operators. In September it announced a partnership with the London Stock Exchange to tokenize the 100 largest London-listed companies. Payward said the LSE intends to list xStocks and trade them on LSE 24, its planned 24-hour venue, in 2027, subject to regulatory approval.
The UK gap
That is where the arrangement looks odd. Tokenized HSBC, Shell and Rolls-Royce shares are now on-chain, but nobody living in the UK can buy them through xStocks. Payward said distribution and eligibility are unchanged by the expansion. Kraken’s support page lists the United States, Australia, Canada and the UK as places where xStocks are not available.
Access inside the EU is limited too. Kraken says clients in the European Economic Area must pass a questionnaire before trading xStocks, and can buy or sell them only with fiat through kraken.com or the Convert feature on Kraken Pro, not through the order book or the API. Clients elsewhere can use both crypto and cash.
That leaves the main audience as investors in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East who cannot easily open a London, Paris or Frankfurt brokerage account, and DeFi users who want stock exposure they can hold in a wallet or post as collateral. Payward’s pitch is round-the-clock trading of companies whose home exchanges close in the evening.
Growth, and numbers that do not line up
Payward said xStocks now spans more than 1,500 tokenized assets, holds over $1.1 billion in assets under management, has passed $45 billion in total volume and has more than 550,000 unique holders. In July, when it signed the GTN deal, it cited more than 500 assets, over $35 billion in volume and nearly 200,000 holders. If both sets of figures are right, the holder count has nearly tripled in less than four months.
The figures are not consistent across Payward’s own releases, though. The DAX release issued the same day gives more than 1,300 xStocks, over $1 billion in assets and more than 500,000 holders. An Oct. 28 release had already put the count above 1,500, including UK and EU assets, before Wednesday’s batch was announced. The releases do not explain the differences, and tokenized stocks are a young market where issuer-reported totals are hard to check independently.
Wall Street is moving the same way. NYSE has picked Avalanche to run the settlement ledger for its planned tokenized stock venue, and the LSE deal puts a traditional exchange on the listing side of xStocks itself. Next on Payward’s list are the Hong Kong tokens and the regulatory approval the LSE needs.
FAQ
Can UK investors buy the new UK and EU xStocks?
No. Payward said xStocks remain unavailable to investors in the United Kingdom, and Kraken also excludes the U.S., Australia and Canada.
Are the tokens backed by real shares?
Payward says each xStock is backed 1:1 by the underlying share held at a regulated custodian, with GTN handling execution and custody for the new UK and EU listings.
Which markets are next?
Payward said hundreds of Hong Kong-listed stocks will follow in the coming weeks, and the London Stock Exchange intends to list xStocks in 2027, subject to approval.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
