Kraken's parent goes shopping for stocks in 90+ markets 🌍

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has partnered with global fintech GTN to expand its xStocks tokenized equity product beyond United States-listed securities for the first time, the companies said Wednesday. The collaboration is designed to bring Hong Kong-listed equities onto the blockchain-based platform initially, with United Kingdom, European, and South Korean stocks to follow subject to regulatory approvals in each jurisdiction. Under the agreement, GTN is providing regulated infrastructure for trade execution and custody, while Payward is leveraging its xStocks framework to tokenise international equities.

xStocks launched in June 2025 with a catalog limited to U.S. stocks and ETFs and has since grown to more than 500 tokenized assets, processing over $35 billion in transaction volume. Each token is backed one-to-one by a real company share held in regulated custody. The product remains unavailable to U.S. residents. Ankit Shah, GTN's Global Head of FinTech, framed the deal as a way for financial institutions to add asset classes without rebuilding their technology stacks. "Financial institutions want to move into new asset classes and markets without rebuilding their technology," Shah said in a statement. "Our infrastructure lets partners like Payward launch quickly across 90+ markets and a full range of instruments, and it includes the sub-accounting technology Kraken needs to offer tokenised products."

Mark Greenberg, global head of Payward Services, said the arrangement targets a structural feature of traditional markets. "For decades, we've accepted that capital markets should be fragmented by country, currency, and market hours," Greenberg said. "That's a legacy financial infrastructure problem." The partnership is operational at the infrastructure level, with distribution to GTN's institutional clients set to follow once required licenses are secured in each market. The companies also signaled that the scope could extend beyond equities to additional asset classes as approvals are obtained.

The push comes as several major trading platforms accelerate similar efforts. Robinhood launched its tokenized equities product through its own blockchain on July 1, while Coinbase is preparing a 1:1-backed offering through its Base network. In March, Payward and Nasdaq announced a tokenized equities gateway targeting early 2027. Earlier, xStocks expanded to Telegram's TON Wallet to test mass-market distribution channels.