Kraken’s parent company expands its tokenized stock business, with xStocks set to cover Hong Kong, UK, and South Korean stock markets.

Kraken parent company Payward has announced it is expanding its tokenized stock platform xStocks, with plans to extend coverage beyond the U.S. equities market to include Hong Kong, the U.K., South Korea and other international stock markets. Payward stated that it is partnering with investment infrastructure provider GTN to bring Hong Kong-listed stocks to the xStocks platform, and later plans to support U.K., European and South Korean equities after obtaining regulatory approval. This collaboration also lays the foundation for future expansion into other tokenized asset classes. Mark Greenberg, Payward’s global services head, noted that other global markets represent key untokenized asset classes, and the firm aims to gradually integrate global capital markets onto the blockchain via xStocks. Previously, xStocks primarily offered on-chain versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs, including popular assets such as Nvidia, Apple and Tesla. The platform currently supports over 500 tokenized securities, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $35 billion and nearly 200,000 holders. The products are not yet accessible to U.S. users. The expansion comes amid intensifying competition in the tokenized securities sector. Players including Robinhood, Coinbase, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange are all advancing plans to tokenize stock assets. Citi previously forecast that the tokenized securities market could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, with the tokenized stock segment accounting for roughly $2.6 trillion.