Kraken to launch tokenized stock trading for Apple, Nvidia, and others outside US

Crypto exchange Kraken plans to launch tokenized stock trading of popular stocks like Apple and for non-U.S. customers, according to a statement from Backed.

"Backed is thrilled to unveil xStocks, a new line of over 55 tokenized stocks and ETFs, set to launch soon on Kraken and integrated with Solana’s best DeFi apps," it said in the statement .

The service, which will debut in the coming weeks, will feature tokenized versions of more than 50 stocks and exchange-traded funds, and be available to customers in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to The Wall Street Journal , which reported on Kraken's launch on Thursday.

The move follows Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi telling The Block in April that the tokenized equity market will dwarf the stablecoin sector, which currently has a total supply of about $240 billion, led by Tether.

"One tokenized equity is going to be equivalent or larger than Tether," Sethi said at the time. "Now you can have fifty, five hundred, a thousand of those tokenized equities — then you do futures and options trading on top of that. The market is just going to get that much bigger, that much larger, that much faster than what we're used to."

Some expect the market for tokenized equities to explode in the coming years, and crypto-native firms like Backed, Plume Network and WhiteRock have shown interest in participating in the possible growth.

Last month, Sethi also said that investors in the UK and Europe face challenges in easily accessing U.S. stocks.

"By the time you want to get access to a financial product that we're used to in the U.S. without friction, you're bludgeoned along the way where you're like, 'I don't really want to do it,'" he said.

In March, Kraken agreed to acquire U.S. retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion as part of its multi-asset strategy, which includes equities trading and payments.