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1. xStocks moves into European equities
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, said on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, that it has tokenized more than 200 UK and European stocks through its xStocks platform. The launch is the company's largest expansion beyond US equities so far and takes xStocks past 1,500 tokenized stocks, ETFs and IPOs.
The initial batch includes some of the most heavily traded companies listed in the United Kingdom and the European Union, among them HSBC, Shell, LVMH and Airbus. Payward said it will keep adding further names on a rolling basis rather than treating the first group as a complete list.
In a post on social media, the xStocks team described the release as its first international launch and said more markets would follow. The expansion was delivered in partnership with GTN, a brokerage infrastructure firm that plays a central role in how the tokens are backed.
2. What is xStocks?
xStocks is Payward's platform for tokenized equities: blockchain-based tokens that track the price of a listed share. According to Payward, each token is backed one-to-one by a real share held with a regulated custodian for as long as the token remains in circulation.
The structure means every token in a wallet corresponds to an actual share sitting in custody. Holders gain economic exposure to the price of companies such as Shell or Airbus, but the token itself is a separate instrument issued on a blockchain rather than a share registered directly in the holder's name.
Tokenized stocks have drawn growing interest because they can trade outside normal exchange hours, settle quickly and be held in the same digital wallets people use for cryptocurrencies. They also make it possible for investors in many countries to gain exposure to foreign markets without opening an account with a traditional broker in each one.
3. Where the new tokens trade
The UK and European tokens are available on Kraken and on other platforms that belong to the xStocks Alliance, the group of trading venues that list Payward's tokenized equities. They are issued on the same blockchains already used by xStocks: Solana, Ethereum and TON.
Payward is offering the tokens in more than 110 markets around the world. One notable exception stands out, however: investors based in the United Kingdom cannot buy them, even though many of the underlying companies are listed in London.
That gap highlights how far tokenized securities still depend on national rules. A product can be built around British shares and sold widely abroad while remaining unavailable to the very investors who live in the country where those companies trade.
The choice of networks also matters for users. Solana, Ethereum and TON each have their own wallets, trading venues and communities, so issuing on all three lets Payward reach a broader set of crypto users than any single chain would, and lets holders keep their tokenized shares on the network they already prefer.
4. Why tokenized stocks differ from owning shares
Buyers of tokenized equities should understand what they are holding. A token backed one-to-one by a share delivers exposure to that share's price, but it is a separate product issued by the platform, and the share itself sits with the custodian rather than in the buyer's name at the company's registrar.
That distinction is why custody arrangements carry so much weight in this market. The value of the promise behind each token depends on the underlying shares actually being held, in full, by a regulated party, and on that party continuing to hold them for as long as the tokens circulate. Payward has said that is how xStocks is structured, with GTN handling the purchase and safekeeping of the shares behind the new UK and European tokens.
The model has clear attractions. Investors in many countries can gain price exposure to large European companies through a crypto account they already use, trade in small amounts and move positions between blockchains such as Solana, Ethereum and TON. It also links two markets that have long operated separately: the regulated world of listed equities and the always-on world of digital assets.
It also explains why regulators treat tokenized shares cautiously. Because the products sit between traditional securities and crypto assets, each jurisdiction decides for itself whether and how they may be offered, which is how a token built on British shares can be sold in more than 110 markets while staying unavailable in Britain itself.
5. Payward's case for borderless portfolios
Mark Greenberg, Payward's chief commercial officer, framed the launch as part of a broader push to remove the geographic and time limits that shape traditional investing. "A portfolio should not have borders or trading hours," he said.
Greenberg described the tokenization of additional international markets as the natural next step for the platform. The UK and European release, in that framing, is the first stage of a plan to put shares from many of the world's major exchanges onchain.
The pitch reflects one of the central promises of tokenized equities. Conventional stock exchanges open and close on fixed schedules and serve investors through national brokerage systems, while blockchains run continuously and can reach users anywhere with an internet connection, subject to local regulation.
6. How big is xStocks now?
xStocks now lists more than 1,500 tokenized stocks, ETFs and IPOs following the European launch. Payward says the platform holds more than $1.1 billion in assets, has handled more than $45 billion in cumulative transaction volume and has over 550,000 holders.
Those figures place xStocks among the larger tokenized equity offerings in the crypto industry. The jump past 1,500 listings also shows how quickly the catalog has grown since the platform began with US shares.
The holder count is especially relevant for a product of this type. Tokenized stocks only work well when there is enough trading interest to support liquid markets, and a base of more than half a million holders gives Payward a foundation for adding new regions.
7. GTN's role and the Hong Kong pipeline
The UK and EU tokens are the first products to emerge from Payward's partnership with GTN. GTN is responsible for executing trades in the underlying shares and holding them in custody, the two functions that make one-to-one backing possible.
Payward first announced the GTN partnership in July 2026. At the time, the company said the collaboration would begin with stocks listed in Hong Kong. Those listings have not yet arrived, but hundreds of Hong Kong shares are scheduled to launch in the coming weeks.
Once the Hong Kong batch goes live, xStocks will cover equities from the United States, the United Kingdom, continental Europe and one of Asia's largest financial centers, bringing it closer to the borderless portfolio Greenberg described.
8. London Stock Exchange plans for 2027
Payward's ambitions in British equities go beyond the current launch. In September 2026, the company agreed a partnership with the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to tokenize the 100 largest companies listed in London.
Subject to regulatory approval, the LSE intends to list xStocks and trade them on LSE 24, its planned venue for trading close to 24 hours a day, starting in 2027. If that goes ahead, tokenized versions of London's biggest companies would trade on one of the world's oldest stock exchanges.
That arrangement could also matter for the current restriction on UK investors. The present launch excludes buyers in the United Kingdom, while the LSE plan would bring xStocks onto a regulated British venue, pending approval from authorities.
9. Exchange investors and acquisitions widen Payward's reach
Established market operators have taken financial stakes in Payward this year. In September 2026, Nasdaq agreed to invest $100 million in the company at a valuation of $21 billion. The investment built on a partnership the two companies struck in March to bring tokenized stocks to market in 2027.
In April 2026, Deutsche Börse, the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, acquired a $200 million stake in Payward. Together, the Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse deals give Kraken's parent ties to major exchange groups in both the United States and Europe.
For traditional exchanges, such partnerships offer a way to participate in tokenization without building every piece of the technology themselves. For Payward, they bring credibility with regulators and institutional clients as it pushes tokenized equities further into mainstream finance.
Payward has also been growing through acquisitions. The company has agreed to buy derivatives exchange Bitnomial in a deal worth $550 million, which would add regulated derivatives trading to its business.
It has also purchased Saldo Bank, a lender based in Lithuania, as part of a broader push into the European Union. Owning a bank within the bloc can give a crypto company a firmer regulatory footing for offering financial services to European customers.
Taken together, the deals show Payward building out a wider financial group around its crypto exchange, combining trading, derivatives, banking and tokenized securities under one parent.
10. What comes next for xStocks
The next milestone is the planned arrival of hundreds of Hong Kong-listed stocks in the coming weeks under the GTN partnership. Payward has also said it will keep adding UK and European names to the initial batch of more than 200.
Further out, the LSE's plan to list and trade xStocks on LSE 24 in 2027 remains subject to regulatory approval, and the tokenized stock effort with Nasdaq is also aimed at 2027. Both would bring xStocks closer to the core of traditional market infrastructure.
For now, the European launch marks a clear step beyond Payward's US-focused beginnings, even as the exclusion of UK investors shows that the rules governing tokenized shares still differ sharply from one country to the next.