Kraken's xStocks Adds 200-Plus UK and EU Stock Tokens, Passing 1,500

Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, put more than 200 tokenized UK and European Union stocks on its xStocks platform Wednesday, taking the lineup past 1,500 assets, the company announced.

British investors are still shut out. The new tokens track UK shares, yet xStocks still can't be sold to investors in the UK, or to U.S. persons, The Block reported from the release.

How a stock token works

Each xStock is backed one-for-one: when a token is issued, a real share is bought and held at a regulated custodian for as long as the token trades. The first batch includes LVMH, Rolls-Royce and SAP, The Defiant reported. GTN, a brokerage technology firm, handles the buying and custody for the new markets. The tokens then trade on Kraken, on partner venues and on blockchains including Solana, Ethereum and TON.

Legally, it isn't the share. xStocks are tracker certificates issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited in Jersey, which give price exposure but no shareholder voting rights, the xStocks legal overview says. Kraken's risk disclosure adds that holders have no claim on the company's assets in a liquidation and pay fees set out in the prospectus, so returns won't match owning the stock.

The size so far

• more than $1.1 billion in assets under management
• more than $45 billion in total trading volume
• more than 550,000 holders
• available in more than 110 markets

Those holder numbers compare with more than 200,000 in September, The Block reported. Payward says hundreds of Hong Kong-listed stocks will follow within weeks. The London Stock Exchange, which partnered with Payward in September, plans to list xStocks on its LSE 24 venue in 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

This is not financial advice.

In our opinion: Rolls-Royce now comes as a token in more than 110 markets, just not in the UK, where it's based. Holder numbers more than doubled since September, so the platform is growing, but on $1.1 billion it's still small next to the markets it tracks. The clock to watch is the LSE 24 approval, the point where a British exchange itself starts listing the tokens.