On Wednesday, Kraken expanded its Stocks product offering of tokenized stocks to European investors. Let’s take a closer look at this new development.
Kraken’s xStocks tokenized stocks arrive in Europe
Last June, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken launched xStocks, a solution for investing in tokenized stocks. While other competitors have also rolled out similar products, Kraken’s offering is now available to European investors:
Speaking at Brainstorm Tech 2025, organized in Park City, Utah, by Fortune magazine, Arjun Sethi, Kraken’s co-CEO, praised the merits of stock tokenization:
Why XStock shares? Why tokenized assets? Because if you own a share, you should own it. If someone wants to profit from it, through staking or otherwise, then that money should go to the owner rather than the institution, as is the case in traditional finance today.
While the promise is appealing, it is important to note a small detail, namely that the tokenized securities available on xStocks are not real shares, as mentioned in the product FAQ:
xStocks do not confer shareholder rights such as voting rights.
They offer exposure to the price of the underlying asset, but do not carry the same rights as the security itself.
Despite this, this new product offers advantages that traditional shares do not, starting with their 24-hour availability and the possibility of withdrawing them from Kraken to store them at a non-custodial address.With this new feature, Kraken continues its expansion in Europe, after obtaining its MiCA license in June from the Central Bank of Ireland.
On the competition side, other players are already targeting European investors. The first platform to get the ball rolling was Gemini in June, followed closely by Robinhood.
For its part, Kraken offers access to more than 60 US stocks, as well as ETFs.
