Payward, the parent company of Kraken and developer of the xStocks tokenised equities framework, has signed a partnership with fintech infrastructure provider GTN to extend xStocks beyond U.S. equities into international markets. The rollout starts with Hong Kong-listed stocks, then moves to UK, European, and South Korean assets, with additional asset classes to follow pending regulatory approvals.

GTN brings execution and custody infrastructure spanning 90+ markets through a single integration, which is the piece Payward needed to make the expansion technically viable. Under the agreement, GTN also handles ledgering and record-keeping of tokenised products, helping token issuers account for the underlying assets. Once GTN secures the required licences in each jurisdiction, it will offer a range of xStocks directly to its own institutional client base alongside its existing product suite.

What Changes for Token Holders

For retail holders already using xStocks, the practical effect is straightforward: tokenised assets from multiple international markets and, eventually, new asset classes can sit in a single on-chain portfolio, tradeable around the clock. That portfolio is already portable across more than 100 exchanges, self-custody wallets, and DeFi protocols where xStocks currently trades. The growing appetite for tokenised stock exposure in DeFi makes the timing notable, as protocols are increasingly building infrastructure to accept such assets as collateral.

Mark Greenberg, Global Head of Payward Services, framed the problem in blunt terms: capital markets have been fragmented by country, currency, and market hours for decades, and that fragmentation is a legacy infrastructure issue rather than a structural necessity. «The biggest asset class that hasn't been tokenized yet is the rest of the world,» he said.

The partnership also positions xStocks to diversify listings across the hundreds of centralised exchanges and DeFi protocols already in its ecosystem. GTN's 90-plus-market reach is the figure that defines the ceiling of what the expanded framework could eventually cover.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.