Payward's xStocks tokenized equities will expand beyond U.S. stocks through a partnership with GTN, starting with Hong Kong listings. The platform has $515M in assets and faces a regulatory push from transfer agents.
Alpha Score of 35 reflects weak overall profile with weak momentum, weak value, poor quality, moderate sentiment.
Payward, the company that runs Kraken, said July 22 it has partnered with GTN, a financial technology infrastructure firm, to bring its xStocks tokenized securities to users outside the U.S. The move shifts the product away from its original focus on American-listed stocks and ETFs.
Mark Greenberg, Payward's global head of services, said the collaboration tackles a long-standing problem in capital markets. “We’ve tolerated fragmented capital markets divided by national borders, currencies, and trading schedules for far too long,” he said. “The largest asset category still awaiting tokenization is international equities.”
xStocks will start with securities listed on Hong Kong exchanges, then expand to the U.K., several European countries, and South Korea, pending regulatory approvals. GTN provides the technical backbone: trade execution, custody, ledger maintenance, and record-keeping across more than 90 financial centers. Payward keeps control of the tokenization process, with each token backed 1:1 by a held security.
The platform now offers more than 500 tokenized products – individual stocks, ETFs, and IPO-linked instruments – and has processed $37 billion in aggregate trading volume. It has attracted nearly 200,000 token holders globally. Payward bought Backed Finance, the original developer of xStocks, in a deal announced in December 2025 and closed in January 2026.
Kraken recently started letting qualified users pledge certain xStocks tokens as collateral for leveraged trading and futures. It also opened a way for eligible participants to express interest in U.S. IPO allocations and receive tokenized shares after listing.
According to data from RWA.xyz, roughly $1.94 billion in tokenized equity products exist across the market. xStocks accounts for $515 million of that, making it the second-largest provider. Ondo leads with $887 million. Other competitors include Robinhood, Coinbase, Backpack, and Superstate, each using a different approach – some issue tokens backed by third-party custodians, others pursue direct blockchain-based registration.
GTN's Ankit Shah said financial institutions want to enter emerging markets without rebuilding technology infrastructure for each country. He said GTN's systems can handle Payward's operations across all 90-plus target markets while delivering the sub-accounting frameworks tokenized products need. Before xStocks can reach GTN's institutional clients, both companies must get the right licenses in each jurisdiction. Implementation has started, with Hong Kong as the first market.
The regulatory environment for tokenized equities remains in flux. U.S. transfer agent trade groups have asked the SEC to draw clearer lines between securities tokenized by the issuer and those created by third parties like Payward. That debate could shape how quickly xStocks and similar products can scale. Transfer agents push SEC to restrict unaffiliated tokenized stocks.
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