Kraken Parent Payward and LSE Plan 100 Tokenized UK Stocks

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is partnering with the London Stock Exchange to tokenize 100 UK-listed stocks.

The LSE plans to list and support xStocks trading on LSE 24, its new night-time venue. The schedule is 24/5, Monday through Friday. The first London-listed xStocks are expected on Kraken and other xStocks Alliance platforms in the coming weeks, pending regulatory approval.

That gives the partnership a defined market clock. Investors using supporting platforms would gain access to London-listed equity exposure outside the regular daytime session, while the LSE would add an on-chain product line to a venue designed for extended trading.

UK-based investors are currently excluded. The products are intended to be available in more than 110 countries, so the immediate access benefit falls outside the UK rather than inside the market whose shares are being represented.

The xStocks framework launched in June 2025 and Payward acquired it in December. The Block reported that it has processed more than $40 billion in total volume across over 200,000 holders, with roughly $20 billion settled onchain. Those figures are reported performance claims for the framework; the fact sheet does not provide an independent verification.

The market has also expanded quickly by reported value. Tokenized stocks rose 15% over the past 30 days to $2.53 billion, while tokenized-equity holders increased 153% to 2.45 million, according to Cointelegraph. xStocks represents $606.6 million of that market, making it the second-largest issuer after Ondo.

The arithmetic puts xStocks at 24.0% of tokenized equities: $606.6 million divided by $2.53 billion equals 0.2398, or 23.98%. That is the disclosed base Payward brings into a UK-stock expansion, before the 100 new listings are available.

The comparison with existing exchange initiatives matters. In March, Intercontinental Exchange invested in crypto exchange OKX to bring NYSE-listed tokenized stocks to the exchange, with a planned launch from the second quarter of 2026. Nasdaq also partnered with Payward and its Backed subsidiary in March to develop an equities transformation gateway. Payward is therefore working with multiple traditional-market operators while its xStocks product competes for users and volume against other tokenized equity issuers.

LSE CEO Julia Hoggett said the exchange is “exploring how issuers and investors can benefit from new forms of access while maintaining the standards that underpin public markets,” The Block reported. In a separate account from CoinDesk, Hoggett said tokenization “must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets.”

The collaboration also goes beyond wrapped or represented shares. Payward and the LSE will explore native equity tokens issued through LSE infrastructure, with the same rights and full fungibility as traditional shares. The fact sheet does not specify which stocks would use that structure, how conversion would work, or which approvals are required.

Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi framed the project as cooperation between crypto and traditional finance: “For years, the assumption was that crypto and traditional finance were on a collision course, and one of them would have to lose. That was never the real story.”

For positions, the next hard dates are operational rather than market-price related: first London-listed xStocks are expected within weeks on Kraken and other supporting platforms, while LSE 24 is planned to provide weekday, around-the-clock trading. Until approvals, eligibility and the native-token structure are specified, the headline access remains a plan.