The London Stock Exchange is collaborating with the parent company of Kraken, Payward, to prepare for the introduction of stocks from 100 large British listed companies into blockchain trading. According to the arrangements announced by both parties on September 1st, these products will be launched through the xStocks platform and will be open to qualified investors in over 110 countries.
The first batch covers 100 British stocks.
Payward will include the 100 largest listed companies by market value on the London Stock Exchange into xStocks. Each token will be pegged 1:1 to the corresponding stock, allowing investors to hold exposure to these British stocks in the form of tokens.
The first batch of products is expected to be launched in the coming weeks, but no specific date has been announced yet by either party. According to the current plan, local British investors will not be included in the initial phase of the launch.
LSE bets on longer trading hours
The core of this collaboration is to connect the infrastructure of traditional stock markets with blockchain technology for crypto assets. Unlike the fixed trading hours of traditional securities markets, tokenized stocks can be traded for longer periods on supported blockchain platforms, nearly achieving 24/7 liquidity.
The London Stock Exchange also plans to introduce xStocks into its proposed LSE 24 trading platform in 2027, but this arrangement still requires regulatory approval.
xStocks has accumulated a trading volume of over $40 billion
According to Payward, xStocks has currently exceeded a cumulative trading volume of 40 billion US dollars, of which nearly 20 billion US dollars have been settled on the blockchain, and the number of holders exceeds 200,000.
Co-CEO Payward stated that the company's goal is to enable traditional financial markets and the crypto market to operate on the same infrastructure. For both parties, the first step of this collaboration is to complete the integration of xStocks with British stocks. Whether they will subsequently enter the LSE 24 market will depend on the progress of regulatory approvals.
