US-based crypto change Kraken has agreed to purchase Backed Finance AG, the corporate behind the issuance of xStocks, including to a string of acquisitions the change has made this 12 months whereas bringing the tokenized-equities platform underneath its roof.
In accordance to Tuesday’s announcement, Kraken plans to combine xStocks’ issuance, buying and selling and settlement extra tightly into its merchandise, together with its world cash app, whereas increasing assist to further blockchains and markets.
XStocks is a platform that points tokenized variations of publicly traded equities, resembling shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). It presently affords over 60 tokenized merchandise and has recorded greater than $10 billion in mixed change and onchain quantity since launching earlier this 12 months.
The tokenized belongings are dwell on the Solana and Ethereum blockchains, with buying and selling out there 24/7 onchain. They are often self-custodied and used throughout a number of networks, in accordance to xStocks.
The acquisition comes after Kraken rolled out Backed’s xStocks product to eligible European customers in September.
Kraken additionally operates the xStocks Alliance, a community of partnered chains and buying and selling venues. Kraken mentioned the acquisition will consolidate that community and assist broader interoperability and liquidity as extra markets add tokenized equities. The businesses didn’t disclose the phrases of the deal.
Kraken, which submitted a confidential US IPO filing in November, has been lively on the acquisition entrance this 12 months. In Could, it acquired NinjaTrader, adopted by the proprietary trading platform Breakout in September, and Small Exchange, a chosen contract market, in October.
Associated: Grayscale submits confidential IPO filing with SEC
Tokenized equities acquire traction throughout main platforms
The rise of tokenized equities, digital tokens that characterize possession of conventional shares on a blockchain, has turn out to be one of many 12 months’s most distinguished crypto developments.
In June, xStocks launched on Bybit, Kraken and several other Solana-based DeFi platforms. The lineup consisted of tokenized versions of blue-chip stocks, together with Netflix, Meta, Coinbase, Amazon, Nvidia, McDonald’s, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft.
That very same month, world buying and selling platform Robinhood launched a layer-2 blockchain on Arbitrum and rolled out tokenized stock trading for European Union users. The platform debuted with greater than 200 US inventory and ETF tokens, tradeable 24/5 with no fee.
In accordance to Dune Analytics data, Robinhood has 943 tokenized shares and ETFs dwell on Arbitrum, with a complete onchain worth of about $10.8 million.
RWA.xyz individually tracks roughly $656 million in regulated tokenized public shares, with $1.14 billion in month-to-month switch quantity and about 118,000 holders. Amongst regulated issuers, Ondo holds about 52% of the market, adopted by Backed Finance at 24% and Securitize at 20%.
Journal: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice
Cointelegraph by Nate Kostar Kraken Acquires Backed Finance to Expand xStocks Tokenized Equities cointelegraph.com 2025-12-02 21:19:15
Source link
