Payward, the parent company of Kraken and developer of the xStocks tokenized equities framework, has partnered with GTN to expand xStocks beyond U.S. stocks and ETFs into international equities and, eventually, other asset classes, the company said Wednesday.
The expansion will begin with equities listed in Hong Kong before extending to UK, European and South Korean assets.
GTN, a fintech infrastructure provider operating across more than 90 markets and eight asset classes through a single API, will supply the global execution and custody for the traditional assets underlying the expanded xStocks offering, along with the ledgering and record-keeping infrastructure needed for token issuers to account for those assets. Subject to GTN securing the required licenses in each market, GTN also plans to make xStocks available to its own institutional client base alongside its existing offering. GTN is regulated across six jurisdictions, including the UK's FCA, Singapore's MAS and Hong Kong's SFC, and counts the International Finance Corporation and SBI Ventures Singapore among its investors.
“The biggest asset class that hasn't been tokenized yet is the rest of the world, and our partnership with GTN is about changing that,” said Mark Greenberg, global head of Payward Services, in the announcement.
Ankit Shah, GTN's global head of fintech, said the partnership lets Payward “launch quickly across 90+ markets and a full range of instruments,” including the sub-accounting technology needed for Kraken to offer tokenized products.
xStocks launched in June 2025 with U.S. stocks and ETFs backed 1:1 by the underlying shares. Since then it has grown to more than 500 tokenized assets across equities, ETFs and IPOs, with over $37 billion in cumulative transaction volume and close to 200,000 holders, according to Payward. The tokens already trade across more than 100 exchanges, wallets and DeFi applications, and OKX launched its own tokenized stock offering built on the xStocks framework on July 16, extending the product beyond Kraken's own platform.
The GTN partnership is live now on the infrastructure side, with distribution to GTN's institutional clients to follow once the necessary licenses are in place market by market. Payward said it would share details on additional asset classes in the coming weeks. xStocks remain unavailable to U.S. persons under existing geographic restrictions, issued by Backed Assets in Jersey and offered to eligible customers through Payward's licensed entities in Bermuda and Cyprus.
