London Stock Exchange partners with Kraken parent to tokenize top 100 UK stocks

The London Stock Exchange announced on Tuesday a partnership with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, to bring tokenized representations of the 100 largest UK-listed companies to its new round-the-clock trading platform, LSE 24, starting in 2027.lseg+1

A Bridge Between Blockchain and Traditional Markets

Under the deal, Payward will issue the top 100 London-listed equities as xStocks, its tokenized equity framework in which each token is backed one-to-one by the underlying share. Subject to regulatory approval, the LSE London Stock Exchange Group plc plans to list xStocks on LSE 24, the 24-hours-a-day, five-days-a-week trading venue it announced in July and expects to open for testing by the end of 2026. The two companies will also explore a structure under which the LSE would issue stock tokens directly, giving member firms the ability to manage shares on-chain with the same rights as conventional equities.ledgerinsights+3

xStocks are structured as loan notes rather than shares — holders have a claim against the issuer, Backed Assets (JE) Limited, rather than shareholder rights, and redemptions settle in cash or crypto. Payward says xStocks has surpassed $40 billion in cumulative trading volume and more than 200,000 holders since launching roughly a year ago. The arrangement could make UK-listed shares available via blockchain to investors in more than 110 countries, though xStocks are not currently offered to investors in the UK itself.bloomingbit+1

TradFi's Widening Tokenization Push

The partnership places the London bourse alongside a growing roster of traditional exchanges moving into blockchain-based equity products. In March, Nasdaq ↘ 0.72% partnered with Payward and its Backed subsidiary to develop a tokenized equities gateway, building on a proposal Nasdaq filed with US regulators in September 2025. ICE Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. ↘ 0.67%, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, invested in crypto exchange OKX to bring NYSE-listed tokenized stocks to that platform. Deutsche Börse invested $200 million in Payward in April as part of its own push into blockchain-based securities.tradingview+1

A Bid for Relevance

The move comes as the LSE contends with declining public listings and rising retail and institutional interest in crypto, according to Dow Jones-owned Morningstar ↗ 0.70%. The value of tokenized stocks on-chain has grown to $2.53 billion, a 15% increase over the past 30 days, while the number of holders surged 153% to 2.45 million, according to data provider RWA.xyz. Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↘ 0.07% reported that LSEG said the tokenized structures would maintain the shareholder rights, protections, and governance standards that underpin public markets.reuters+2