Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is expanding its tokenized stock platform beyond U.S. companies as it looks to give investors blockchain-based access to shares from more markets around the world.
The company said it is partnering with investment infrastructure provider GTN to bring Hong Kong-listed stocks to its xStocks platform. Tokenized equities from the U.K., Europe and South Korea are also planned, subject to regulatory approvals.
The move comes as interest in tokenized securities continues to grow across both the crypto industry and traditional finance.
Kraken’s move in tandem with peers
Robinhood had rolled out its tokenised stock offering to Europe earlier this month and Coinbase has also announced plans to launch stock tokens. Meanwhile, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a key part of the U.S. securities market, has started testing infrastructure for tokenised securities, and both Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have launched their own tokenisation efforts.
Tokenisation is the process of converting traditional assets like stocks into digital tokens on a blockchain. Proponents say the technology could make financial markets more efficient by allowing faster settlement, 24/7 trading and easier movement of assets between platforms.
Citi estimates that the market for tokenised securities could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, with tokenised equities comprising $2.6 trillion of the total.
So far, most tokenised stock platforms have focused on U.S.-listed companies, providing digital versions of stocks like Nvidia, Apple and Tesla.
“Payward wants to broaden the range of investment choices for users by bringing overseas markets to them. The expansion will allow investors to access companies listed in Asia and Europe, including technology companies that have become increasingly popular with global retail investors.
The GTN partnership also marks the next phase for xStocks, which launched last year with tokenised U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds.
Payward’s xStocks platform expands with 500+ tokenized securities
Payward said it has now tokenised over 500 securities, has traded over $35 billion in volume and has nearly 200,000 holders on its platform. The products are not currently available to investors in the United States.
The partnership could support the launch of tokenised versions of other asset classes beyond equities, the company said looking ahead.“The granddaddy of all asset classes that hasn’t yet been tokenised is the rest of the world,” Mark Greenberg, Global Head of Payward Services, said in a statement. “We are bringing truly global capital markets onchain one asset at a time until geography is no longer relevant to investing.”
The announcement follows growing competition in the tokenised asset space.
Crypto firms and traditional financial institutions are racing to bring real-world assets on to blockchain networks, betting that tokenisation may transform how investors buy, sell and own financial products.
For Payward, extending xStocks beyond the U.S. is part of that larger vision. The company aims to provide users with access to a broader set of global companies through a single blockchain-based platform, rather than restricting users to U.S. stocks.
As tokenisation begins to take hold, firms across the crypto space and Wall Street are increasingly eyeing digital versions of traditional assets as a core part of the future of capital markets.
