Kraken opened trading in 7,000+ US stocks to EEA users via a Cyprus-regulated brokerage, two months after its tokenized xStocks product failed to deliver SpaceX shares.
Alpha Score of 49 reflects weak overall profile with strong momentum, poor value, moderate quality. Based on 3 of 4 signals – score is capped at 90 until remaining data ingests.
Kraken opened trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks to customers across the European Economic Area on Tuesday, letting them buy and hold real shares through the same account as its crypto and tokenized-stock products. The stock trading runs through Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, a Cyprus-licensed brokerage whose authorization has been active since November 2017, according to the Cyprus securities regulator’s database.
The move comes two months after Kraken’s tokenized stock product, xStocks, failed to deliver shares tied to SpaceX. In June, Kraken opened access to SPCXx, a token meant to track SpaceX equity ahead of the company’s IPO, in more than 110 countries. When SpaceX’s IPO priced, none of the promised shares arrived. Binance Wallet, which offered the same token, refunded roughly $557 million in stablecoins across 27,700 wallets. Kraken’s own subscribers received a small fraction of the tokens they had signed up for.
Kraken had been running stock trading in Germany, the Netherlands and France before Tuesday’s EEA-wide release. Trading runs through Kraken Pro and the mobile app, commission-free on the stock side, though spreads and foreign-exchange costs apply. Mark Greenberg, chief commercial officer of Payward, framed the move as putting “US-listed stocks and xStocks available side-by-side in a single regulated account.”
The tokenized half of that pitch, xStocks, started through a partnership with Backed Finance in June 2025. Volume grew past $10 billion by November and past $25 billion by February. In December, Kraken agreed to buy Backed outright. By March, xStocks had grown from 60 assets to 100 and added a Nasdaq partnership to develop token infrastructure.
The real stock offering runs through a different entity entirely. Payward Europe Digital Solutions holds MiFID II license 342/17, active since November 2017. That license predates xStocks by nearly eight years. It is not the entity that owns or issues the tokens.
Regulators have been openly skeptical of the tokenized category this year. The World Federation of Exchanges wrote in an August 2025 position paper that such products are “not stocks,” despite being marketed to resemble them, and warned they invite regulatory arbitrage. The Bank of Lithuania, which oversees Robinhood’s EU operations, said it had contacted the company for clarification on its own tokenized stock offerings.
Kraken’s parent, Payward, is still trying to expand xStocks beyond the US stock list, into Hong Kong, the UK and South Korea, an effort it announced in July. That expansion, along with its broader push into financial products and the pending IPO Payward has been preparing for since March, both depend on xStocks working the way Kraken says it does. Real stock trading does not carry that dependency. It settles through custody and clearing systems that don’t run through Backed.
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