Kraken has announced the launch of tokenized US stocks across Europe, giving users in the continent direct access to over 60 equities linked to real companies, including Apple, Meta, and GameStop.
The new feature runs on xStocks, a blockchain platform developed by Backed Finance, and is part of Kraken’s global rollout that first began in May. Users in Europe can now trade these assets on-chain, around the clock, no matter when traditional markets are closed. “‘Why xStocks? Why tokenized assets?’ Because if you own a share, you should own it. If someone is going to make money off of it, from staking or otherwise, then it should be passed on to the person who owns it, versus the institution, which is how traditional finance works today,” Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said.
Kraken set to provide competition to Robinhood
These shares, based on blockchains, are designed to track actual stock prices without needing to go through traditional brokers or exchanges. Each token represents a digital version of a stock. However, the stocks are not issued by the actual companies, but instead, they are created by third parties.
This way, users have the chance to access major US equities without touching the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. Unlike regular shares, the tokenized version can also be used as collateral in other blockchain systems, making them more flexible in crypto-native platforms. The total size of this market is still relatively small, with the tokenized stock market valued at around $421 million.
The trend has already seen competition, with Robinhood launching a similar product for European users earlier this year. The platform added access to tokenized shares of private companies like OpenAI, a move that later triggered backlash when OpenAI warned investors not to buy them. Kraken’s approach stays closer to traditional names, avoiding private firms and instead sticking to public stocks only.
