The London Stock Exchange has announced a strategic partnership with Kraken parent Payward to bring tokenized versions of the 100 largest LSE-listed companies to the xStocks framework. According to reports from Reuters, the move marks the latest push by the London Stock Exchange to embrace crypto assets, following its announcement in February that it would build a blockchain-based settlement service. The partnership was officially announced on September 1, 2025, with Payward confirming the products will become available within weeks to eligible investors in more than 110 countries. As reported by TradingView News, the partnership was officially agreed on Monday, with Payward confirming the products will become available within weeks to eligible investors in more than 110 countries. However, UK residents do not qualify for access to these tokenized versions, creating a significant limitation for domestic investors.
Under the partnership, shares of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange will be made available through Payward's xStocks framework. Each xStock is backed one-to-one by the corresponding underlying security and can trade around the clock through supported centralized exchanges. The planned London rollout would give eligible investors across more than 110 countries access to tokenized versions of U.K.-listed companies, though UK-based investors will not be among them according to TradingView News. The arrangement is designed to widen access to UK-listed equities beyond traditional exchange hours and legacy settlement systems, with xStocks enabling 24/7 trading outside traditional hours and allowing holders to move supported tokens to self-custody wallets and trade them onchain outside conventional exchange hours. The xStocks framework has already demonstrated significant growth, with Payward reporting over $40 billion in total trading volume in just over a year, including nearly $20 billion settled onchain and more than 200,000 holders worldwide.
The partnership extends beyond distributing tokenized London-listed shares through Payward's existing network. London Stock Exchange Group plans to list xStocks on LSE 24, its recently announced round-the-clock venue, in 2027, subject to regulatory approval. As reported by Reuters, the LSE said in July that client testing should begin by the end of 2026, with its original plan putting exchange-traded products first, followed by equities in the first half of 2027. The platform is expected to eventually cover tokenized equities from the U.S., European Union, U.K. and Hong Kong, with other asset classes potentially added as the framework develops. The LSE is also exploring natively issued equity tokens with full fungibility and the same rights as traditional shares, allowing LSE members to issue and service stock directly onchain. This development aligns with the LSE's earlier plans for a separate overnight market, which would offer exchange-traded products linked to U.K. and U.S. stock markets, with the Payward agreement now identifying tokenized UK shares as part of that expansion.
The partnership extends a run of institutional tie-ups for xStocks over the past year, with the framework having grown to more than 500 tokenized assets spanning equities, ETFs and IPOs with more than $40 billion in cumulative transaction volume and close to 200,000 holders worldwide, according to Payward. In March, Payward partnered with Nasdaq to build a gateway connecting permissioned and permissionless tokenized equity markets, with Payward serving as settlement layer and handling KYC and AML compliance. In July, it partnered with fintech infrastructure provider GTN to expand xStocks beyond US markets, beginning with Hong Kong-listed equities ahead of planned expansions into UK, European and South Korean assets. The London Stock Exchange partnership represents the first to pair Payward's tokenization framework directly with a major exchange's own regulated settlement infrastructure, rather than layering it on top of existing market access alone, as noted by Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi. The scale of xStocks' expansion is becoming significant, with the platform having surpassed $40 billion in cumulative transaction volume, including nearly $20 billion traded on-chain, and expanding to more than 100 partners and seven blockchain ecosystems.
The partnership reflects the broader institutional embrace of tokenization while maintaining traditional market safeguards. Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, emphasized that tokenization 'must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets'. As reported by Payward, the deal extends xStocks' push beyond U.S. equities, with Payward saying in July 2026 it was expanding the platform to stocks from the U.K., Hong Kong, South Korea, and other markets, as exchanges and crypto firms compete to put global equities on blockchains. Beyond the Payward partnership, the London Stock Exchange is separately assessing its own UK tokenized equity structure designed to broaden access to capital markets while preserving shareholder rights, protections and governance standards that underpin public markets. This initiative extends LSEG's broader push to modernize market infrastructure through LSE 24, the Digital Securities Depository and Digital Settlement House, a platform enabling programmatic settlement between payment networks on and off-chain. The traditional brokerage system currently involves share settlement during exchange hours that passes through multiple intermediaries, a process that can take days, while tokenized versions can move continuously and be transferred directly into self-custodied wallets or decentralized finance applications while following the same underlying price.
