Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has partnered with fintech infrastructure provider GTN to expand its xStocks platform beyond U.S. companies to bring shares from Hong Kong, the U.K., Europe, and South Korea onchain. According to the latest announcement from Payward, the company is starting with Hong Kong-listed stocks before targeting the UK, Europe, and South Korea markets, with expansion dependent on local regulatory approvals and licenses. The partnership with GTN, which connects to more than 90 global markets, will provide execution, custody and recordkeeping for the securities backing the tokens. As reported by Payward's Mark Greenberg, global head of Payward Services, "The biggest asset class that hasn't been tokenized yet is the rest of the world." The move comes as competition in tokenized equities intensifies, with Robinhood expanding its tokenized stock offering beyond European users and Coinbase planning similar initiatives.
The cryptocurrency market is experiencing significant downward pressure, with Bitcoin trading near $63,027 and the total market cap falling to approximately $2.17 trillion, down 1.3% in 24 hours. According to latest market analysis, the pullback is driven by hawkish Federal Reserve signals reducing rate-cut odds, estimated $7 billion of spot Bitcoin ETF outflows in May-June, US-Iran geopolitical risk, and a leveraged long liquidation cluster near $68,000. The Fear & Greed Index sits at 27 (Fear), reflecting widespread risk-off sentiment across financial markets. As reported by market analysts, crypto is down today as hawkish Fed minutes, Iran tensions, and ETF outflows weigh on Bitcoin, with the market reacting more sharply than equities due to higher volatility and 24/7 liquidity.
According to the latest reports, Kraken's offering features linear, USD-settled contracts that remove the need to manage crypto collateral or settlement, with premiums, profit and loss, and settlement all denominated in U.S. dollars. The contracts now provide weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and new Tuesday and Thursday expirations with minimum order sizes starting at 0.01 contracts for BTC/USD and 0.1 for ETH/USD, and tick sizes of $1 and $0.10 respectively. The exchange has integrated options into the same unified account that clients use for spot and futures trading, with portfolio margin enabled by default allowing offsetting positions across products to reduce collateral requirements. Users can post collateral in more than 30 currencies, and the company has invested heavily in the trading interface with educational tools designed to help traders understand strategies such as calls, puts and multi-leg positions.
According to the latest data, xStocks has grown past 500 tokenized assets and $37 billion in total transaction volume since launch, with nearly 200,000 holders worldwide. The platform has expanded beyond basic stock exposure to include more than 500 tokenized assets spanning equities, ETFs and IPO-related products, with each xStock using underlying securities to maintain 1:1 backing. As reported by Crypto.news, tokenized stock transfer volume reached $8.41 billion during a recent monthly period, while distributed value climbed to about $2.16 billion, with xStocks ranking among the largest platforms in the sector. The platform has also added new features during 2026, including allowing eligible clients to use selected xStocks as collateral for futures and margin positions, and expanding into IPO access for eligible Kraken users and xStocks Alliance members to receive tokenized shares after listing.
The partnership between Payward and GTN provides execution, custody, ledgering and record-keeping infrastructure across more than 90 markets through a single infrastructure layer. As reported by Ankit Shah, Global Head of FinTech at GTN, "Financial firms want access to new markets without rebuilding their technology for each expansion." The expanded assets could become available across more than 100 exchanges, wallets and decentralized finance applications that already support the xStocks ecosystem. Future updates are expected to include a public order book to improve price discovery, broader geographic availability and support for additional assets. The xStocks platform now supports more than 500 tokenized securities, has processed more than $35 billion in trading volume and has nearly 200,000 holders, according to Payward, with products remaining unavailable to U.S. investors.
