Kraken Sticks Yield on Tokenized Stocks, Because Apparently Your NVDAx Needed a Side Hustle 📈

Crypto exchange Kraken has launched onchain yield vaults for select tokenized stocks and ETFs, allowing clients to earn returns by lending the assets through decentralized finance protocols, according to a Monday announcement.

The new xStocks vaults support tokenized versions of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPYx), Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQx) and Nvidia (NVDAx), with yield generated by lending the assets through onchain markets. Yield is paid in the deposited xStocks, while withdrawal requests are processed within three days.

The vaults use the same infrastructure as Kraken DeFi Earn, which launched in January and has since attracted more than $800 million in deposits, according to the company. The xStocks vaults are powered by Veda, with Sentora designing and managing the lending strategies used to generate yield. Assets are lent through DeFi markets such as Kamino on Solana, with Sentora setting exposure limits and monitoring collateral, liquidity and oracle conditions.

The vaults are available to eligible Kraken clients in the European Economic Area and other markets, but are excluded in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

Kraken's launch comes amid rapid growth in tokenized equities. The distributed value of tokenized stocks and ETFs has climbed to about $2.84 billion, up from roughly $540 million a year ago, according to RWA.xyz data.