Kraken Parent Payward Broadens Tokenized Stock Push to Hong Kong, South Korea

Payward, the parent company of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is expanding its tokenized stock service.

CoinDesk reported on July 22 that Payward is working with global investment infrastructure provider GTN to tokenize Hong Kong-listed shares and list them on the xStocks platform. Subject to regulatory approvals, the company plans to add tokenized trading for stocks from South Korea, Europe and the U.K. in phases.

Through the partnership, Payward also plans to expand beyond tokenized stocks into real-world assets, or RWAs. "The largest asset class that remains untokenized is the global asset market outside the U.S.," Mark Greenberg, Payward's global head of consumer, told CoinDesk. He added that the company aims to bring capital markets around the world on-chain one by one until geography no longer matters in investing.

The announcement comes as competition in tokenized equities heats up. Robinhood said earlier in July that it would expand the markets covered by its tokenized stock service. U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase also plans to formally launch its tokenized stock service next month.

xStocks began the service last year by tokenizing select U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds. It now supports trading in more than 500 tokenized stocks.