Payward Expands xStocks to Hong Kong, UK, South Korea and European Equities

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is widening its xStocks tokenised equities platform beyond United States-listed companies to include stocks from Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Europe. The expansion is being built through a partnership with investment infrastructure provider GTN, which connects to more than 90 global markets and will handle execution, custody and recordkeeping for the underlying securities. All non-US additions remain subject to regulatory approvals, and GTN intends to offer xStocks products to its own institutional client base once those clearances are in place.

xStocks launched last year with tokenised US stocks and exchange-traded funds and now supports more than 500 tokenised securities. The platform has processed more than $35 billion in trading volume and holds nearly 200,000 token holders, according to Payward. The products are not available to US investors. The GTN partnership also creates a foundation for expanding xStocks into asset classes beyond equities.

The move arrives as competitive pressure in tokenised equities builds rapidly. Robinhood expanded its tokenised stock offering earlier this month, Coinbase has announced plans to offer stock tokens, and infrastructure incumbents including the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have each begun tokenisation initiatives. Citi has estimated the tokenised securities market could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, including $2.6 trillion in tokenised equities.

The geographic pivot also surfaces a live structural debate: xStocks and similar platforms rely on third-party issuers that purchase and custody traditional shares before minting tokens, whereas an alternative school of thought argues securities should be issued natively on blockchain networks to remove intermediaries entirely. Regulators and market infrastructure providers are paying increasing attention to how that question is resolved, making the issuance model a material variable for any operator building in this space.