The Robinhood platform has clearly stirred up the crypto world with the launch of its tokenized stocks. Kraken has responded to this war by going on the offensive, launching its xStocks on the BNB Chain.
Tokenized stocks: war is declared between Kraken and Robinhood
The development of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is already shaking up traditional stock markets such as Wall Street, even though current market share remains negligible compared to the potential that could be realized in the coming years.
Kraken has quickly positioned itself in this race with the recent launch of its xStocks option, which can replicate US stocks and other ETFs in the form of tokens on the Solana blockchain.
This advance was developed in partnership with Backed Finance, which has just taken a new strategic turn. The goal is to counter the highly publicized arrival of competitor Robinhood in a market that is already sounding regulatory alarm bells in the European Union. Choosing the best player will be difficult, according to Backed Finance’s head of growth, David Henderson.
The question remains as to who will be best positioned to integrate them: do you trust the traditional financial company that is getting into crypto, or do you trust the crypto platform that is trying to get into traditional finance?
David Henderson
Towards the BNB Chain and beyond?
Faced with this legitimate question, the Kraken platform seems to want to respond with an offensive. Just a few days after the Robinhood earthquake, the US crypto exchange has announced its intention to extend its xStocks offering to the BNB Chain, Binance’s blockchain.
This multi-chain ambition paves the way for a decentralized finance (DeFi) market estimated to be worth more than $6 billion, according to data from the DeFiLlama website. This is an opportunity for Kraken to reiterate in its official statement that this includes popular stocks such as Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA), as well as the S&P 500 ETF (SPY).
The expansion to BNB Chain reinforces our fundamental belief that tokenized stocks are not just digital wrappers for traditional assets — they are a fundamental upgrade to the financial system itself.
Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken
According to Backed Finance co-founder Adam Levi, the on-chain dimension of tokenized stocks is the real future of this sector. A feature that makes its xStocks a “new asset class that is both neutral and in the public interest.”
Furthermore, their integration on the BNB Chain could well open the doors to the Binance platform, although Backed Finance’s head of growth simply states that they are “in talks with several exchanges.”
