Tokenized stocks head overseas — what a blockchain 'copy' of a real share actually is

Kraken's parent company, Payward, said on July 22 it will take its xStocks beyond US equities for the first time, partnering with fintech GTN to add shares from Hong Kong, the UK, Europe, and South Korea. xStocks are blockchain tokens that each stand in for a real company share, and the move is the latest sign that "tokenized stocks" have become one of crypto's fastest-growing experiments.

A tokenized stock is a token recorded on a blockchain and backed one-to-one by a real share held in regulated custody. The pitch is that, unlike a traditional brokerage account, these tokens can settle instantly and trade around the clock rather than only during market hours. xStocks launched in June 2025 with US stocks and ETFs and has since grown to more than 500 tokenized assets and over $35 billion in transaction volume.

Kraken is not alone. Robinhood launched its own tokenized equities on July 1, Coinbase is preparing a one-to-one-backed version on its Base network and is pitching an "everything" app in markets like Canada, and Payward has a separate tokenized-equities gateway planned with Nasdaq for early 2027. The race is now less about US stocks than about who can reach the rest of the world's markets first.

Here is the detail beginners should not skip: xStocks are not available to US residents, and most of these products launch outside the US first while regulators catch up. Owning a tokenized share is also not the same as owning the share directly through a broker. You are holding a token that depends on a company actually holding the real stock for you, which adds custody and counterparty risk on top of the normal ups and downs of the stock itself.

Tokenized stocks are new, and "trades 24/7" cuts both ways: a market that never closes also never gives you a pause to think. Before touching one, it is worth knowing who holds the underlying shares, what happens to your token if that company fails, and whether the product is even legal where you live. New rails can be genuinely useful, but they do not remove the old risks.